Friday, 4 September
It has got hot again. I am lying here on the sofa down stairs at the beach house in New Jersey, hammering away at the trusty old iBook, and I have no clothes on. Jessy, Josie and I got here early this afternoon, after our Ferry ride and after checking on the house, and we were able to avoid the worst of the traffic. The guy on the local radio station said the Causeway was jammed about 11 miles. [sigh] Thank God for not having school yet; else would never have got here in time for our shift at the shop.
We put Josie in one of Jessy's outfits, the cute dark-green paisley bodice with stays and a pretty pale-grey skirt. Dottie put her to work in the verandah (the screened porch that goes round three sides of the place). She had never worked as a waitress before and made $18 in tips tonight. The place was really pumping all evening. We walked down the street in our Colonial outfits and by then it was beastly hot. Those two are up stairs... looking over their FaceBooks I am sure. Josie tends to devote a lot of time to Twitter. I don't see the point and have never done more than glance at it. I have updated my FaceBook with the best pics from our 'underwear glamour show' last weekend and that's enough for me, for now.
Yesterday we three had a delightful day, driving up to Chincoteague in the morning and spending most of the day on the beach there. We all wore swimsuits under shorts and shirts and were able to go out to supper later. All of us went in the water-- it was lovely. We lay on towels near a very nice family and ended up playing with some of the children. There were 4-year-old twin girls and two boys. We made a sandcastle and talked with the mother, who is a Christian from Maryland, a little north of the beach road. They have a vegetable farm and a stand on the road, and they have raised sheepdogs... so I told them about Stephen who has worked at the animal rescue shelter and is now going to UMES. Later some boys our age happened by and struck up a conversation. Jessy and Josie soaked up-- as you may well imagine-- and I just sat and talked with the mother next to us, till the guys had got their eyefuls of Jessy and Josie in bikinis and wandered off. Then the mother said to me, 'Am I keeping you from anything more social?'
I just laughed. 'No. Believe me. I'm fine.'
'Your sister seems to be interested,' she said.
'I'm sure she is.'
'You're not? Pretty girl like you?'
I shrugged, still kneeling in the sand, moulding the sandcastle with both hands for the boys. 'There are two of them. Let them have their fun.'
She laughed. 'All right,' she said.
Later I got up and wandered down to the water by myself. There was a whole row of people standing with ankles in the water, older and younger, and dozens of squealing happy children darting round us all. I stood with my arms folded over my tummy and watched them all or stared out at the horizon. Soon a guy came up and stood beside me. I don't think he was there just because of me-- it was just coincidence that he found that place clear enough to stand and take the shorebreak as it rolled in. He was older than me, maybe 25 or so. You know how it is-- you get the sensation people are looking at you before you actually know for sure that they are. I would think it was conceited of me to assume that, except that it's so often true.
'Hello,' he said to me, his eyes going down where any guy's would have, and then he looked me face-to-face. 'How are you doing, there?'
I shrugged and looked out at the ocean. 'I'm fine,' I said.
One of the little boys from beside our towels ran by and smiled up at me. I waved. 'That's cute,' the man said. 'I mean that he waved at you.'
'Oh,' I said. 'Well, I was just playing with him earlier.'
'Oh,' he said. He hadn't expected that. They never do, you know. Most men want to assume you are wholly unconnected to anyone else. I suppose it makes it easier for them. 'So,' he said, 'last weekend of vacation before classes start?'
I nodded. 'Something like that.'
'I'm from DC,' he told me.
I looked him over then-- clean-cut, short hair, decent shape, dull-looking khaki shorts that were too long, mild tan. Obviously a white-collar type from the city. I nodded then. 'Oh,' I said.
'And where are you from?'
I shrugged again. 'A little south of here,' I said.
'Oh.... Local, huh? I bet this is a nice place to be from.'
'I guess.' I turned then and looked back at Josie and Jessy who were flat on their backs and had not noticed this guy trying to chat me up. I wondered what he would do when he found out how old I was. Then I wondered if he suspected I were safely over 18 or if he would prefer I were not. Then I decided I didn't care to know that much about him, because this wasn't going anywhere other than a friendly chat on the beach.
The man allowed me to stand there on my own for a bit and then turned right to me and asked, 'So, what's your name?'
I shivered a little. Now he was asking for personal information. 'Um,' I said, and then glanced back at the other two. 'Excuse me, please.' And I turned to go back.
'No need to be afraid,' he said, with that patronising look they all get when they like to assume they are in control and you are being 'typically feminine' and feeling intimidated by a man who 'knows what he wants'.
I looked right at him then, still with my arms folded over my tummy. 'I'm not afraid of anything,' I said.
He smirked now at me. 'Then stay here and tell me your name.'
I nodded. 'Please excuse me now.' And I turned to go.
'No excuse for being rude,' he said after me. And I would ignore that.
After I had take a place on the blanket beside Jessy I told them both about him. Sure enough, the both sat up to look. He paid us no mind at all-- then, but later we saw him strolling the beach and he happened to look up our way at us. I saw that smirk again-- but I'm pretty sure he recognised that Jessy and Josie looked younger than I am and that probably made him realise we were all a little too young for him to be expecting tit for tat... or whatever he'd want to call it.
The first rule of being a gentleman is to never importune a lady. Never make her feel uncomfortable, never demand information or favours from her, never treat her like she owes you anything, never do anything that you believe she has to repay. Any man who can't be polite to a lady just for the sake of being polite, period, is no gentleman.
The man on the beach ought to have known I knew more about his age than he assumed about mine, and that I had already decided it was an ineligible match. Sure, I go to the beach to meet nice guys. I usually don't care if they are a little older than I am. I sort of expect it. And yes, it is sometimes flattering. But I don't care for being expected to give out information. And I always find it more charming when the lady introduces herself first. Then she has the choice of offering her hand-- a gentleman should never offer his hand to a lady first, because it's a form of requiring her to do something, in this case to take it. And when I first said 'excuse me' he should have realised he had just required something from me and said, 'I'm sorry'. But, instead, he behaved as most men do and defended his choice to be impertinent. He didn't care about my feelings or anything about me. He only cared about what he wanted-- which may have been just a friendly kind of chat on the beach with a girl in a bikini. But because he didn't care about me at all, he didn't get that.
I e-mailed one of my friends from HOH about it last night and she came back this afternoon telling me I did well. I had been afraid I was only being characteristically snobby and stuck-up, and she was like, 'What did he want? Where did he come from? Why did he chat up you? How long was he looking at you before?' And I got the impression from what she made me think about and how the so-called conversation had gone that he probably had chosen me to stop beside and speak to. That's a little creepy. And so I am glad I went back to the others and ended an already-awkward exchange.
We went back to the car without getting dressed and stopped at McDonald's for drive-through. By then those two had shimmied into their shorts at least-- I had not because I was driving. The guy in the drive-through window looked straight down at me. I didn't mind-- I am sure he sees girls in swimsuits all the time. So it was only at the Dollar General that I pulled on the shorts to get out of the car.
I am grateful for Josie because she shares our sense of self-respect and modesty. I know she likes to flirt a little-- she is, of course, a Gemini!! --but she is a very decent sort of girl and no one can fault her too much for appreciating a certain level of attention. With Jessy and me she is always a perfect lady.
Today we drove up Rt 13 in our swimsuits in the car, and when we got on the Ferry we went up to the top deck and sat out in the sun. People laughed-- but we were hardly the first people do to such a thing. Mother admitted she had done it when she was my age here too. A couple of people stared at us like we were nuts-- but really the day was perfect for it, and who could blame us? When we got to the house we had time to stroll the beach a bit before returning to dress in the Colonial outfits for the shop. Josie was actually embarrassed when Jessy and I told her we don't wear anything under the skirts. 'Really?'
We both laughed. 'Josie,' I said, 'you mean you never heard that?' I was naked and pulling on the shift then. 'Panties aren't old-fashioned, love.'
And we helped her get dressed, lacing up the bodice and the top of the shift and so on. Suddenly she was excited. And as we walked up the street to the shop people waved and hooted horns at us, as we do, and she finally leaned over and whispered, 'I feel so hot.'
'Hot?' I teased. 'I would have thought it'd been cooler than you're used to.'
But then she surprised me. 'After half a summer with you two? No, I'm very comfortable without, Janine.' And we all laughed.
Now it is very late and this laptop in my lap is making me feel feverish from its own heat. I shall go now. More later--
...
Showing posts with label sunbathing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sunbathing. Show all posts
05 September 2009
30 August 2009
Naked makeovers and other stuff
Friday, 28 August
Josie came home with us after our dinner out with girls' club. She had not brought anything with her to stay over but we three realised she certainly wouldn't need anything she couldn't get from Jessy, that is if she would need anything to wear at all-- and she already has a toothbrush here.
We were on our own most of the day, just lolling round the house and sunning and swimming. Actually neither Jessy nor I have lost much sun colour at all-- our tans were all the rage with the girls in Norwich and we must have looked like starlets from St Tropez to them! Josie has not been inattentive to hers either and is now-- may I pronounce it with all proper fanfare-- without ANY bikini patches at all. She resembles Jessy a lot, in both complexion and figure and, though she is really more like a light brunette than a dark blonde, with so much sun her hair is very light and looks terrific. She has been letting it grow (like Jessy has) and it's now past her shoulders and getting a little wavy from being kept in a ponytail on top of her head. Jessy's hair is, of course, absolutely fabulous, long and curly, even kinky, and true blonde, now lightened to a brilliant gold by the summer sun, falling well past her shoulders to nearly the small of her back when she chooses to wear it down. Today it was all piled on top of her head, as though she were going to a formal. The three of us put on sneakers and strolled out along the path into the preserve, which is adjacent to the softball field, and along the way Josie persuaded her to take out the clips and let it fall loose. I swear she looked like a wild jungle princess. I honestly do envy her.
Josie tends to spend a lot of time looking at me, I guess because I am older and tend to be the one who sets an example. But really I only do what I believe is prudent and respectable, you know. Josie doesn't have any siblings and being a Gemini (ha!) she has always looked for some close friend or someone to latch onto so that she's one of a pair. Jessy (a Leo) is very independent and, as I have said before, probably more conservative than I am, so she is a pretty good one for someone like Josie to follow.
Our parents were to come home this afternoon, so this would put an end to at least most of our lolling round naked. Nevertheless we did spend a lovely afternoon round the pool, and when Lisa's happy, shrill voice rang out in the house we were all in the water. 'Josie's here!' she observed, standing at the end of the pool in her new sneakers and socks and her little pink shorts and tropical shirt over her lavender swimsuit, gazing down at the three of us. 'What have you guys been doing?'
'Hi, Daddy,' Jessy called, seeing him step out the French windows.
'I might have guessed,' he said wryly at us.
I leaned on my hands on top of the coping and smiled up at him. Jessy and Josie were cowering along the edge beside me. 'Hullo, Mr C,' Josie called up.
'Hullo yourself,' he said. 'Everything safe and sound? House is okay?'
'Of course,' I said. 'Roger's been looking in, you know.'
'Where did he take off to?'
I shrugged. 'Delaware,' I said, meaning our other house, or the hangar where the cars are. 'I think.'
He nodded. 'I'll call him. It's just been you three then, right? Please tell me it has been.'
'Of course, Daddy!' Jessy said, and then suddenly arced over backwards and dove upside-down into the water. Josie turned and laughed at her-- but she wasn't about to do such a showy manœuvre with our father standing there able to see it.
He went back in and Lisa squatted down in front of me and asked me more about what we've been doing. I told her about the walk over to the ball field. She started to get undressed to join us but then Mother came out and called her in. They had just got here and already she was starting dinner. 'Is Josie staying?' she called.
'If that's all right,' Josie smiled.
'It's always all right,' said Mother, and she went back in.
When Jessy reported that she heard the electric door going up in the garage we figured Daddy was far enough out of range for us to dash in to the house. Of course, you know, Jessy and I don't mind. This is mainly out of respect for Josie, whose situation here is much different from ours.
For dinner we all dressed in shorts and t-shirts, including Josie who borrowed from Jessy. Afterwards we played with J.J. and Lisa in the basement play room, getting out trucks and blocks and Barbies and having the kind of fun you always wish you could still have, so long as your peers in school don't hear about it-- even though they wish the same thing. Later we each showered, and the three of us ended up in Jessy's room, lying about the carpet, pouring over fashion magazines and debating this look or that one. It got dark, we put on a lamp or two, and in the low light all of us looked much tanner than we already are. Someone came up with the idea of playing with makeup and before long we were all doing makeovers on each other in my bathroom. This is the kind of thing only someone like Josie could thrive on, since she is less modest than Jessy and I are and a little more materialistic, or appearance-oriented. In other words she is a little more normal! Lisa was sent up for her bath-- which I usually start for her-- but dallied long enough amongst us that Josie finally beckoned her over to do something with her too. Lisa was, of course, thrilled-- but of course doing a makeover on a six-year-old is pointless.
'I want that dark stuff!' she said. 'I want blue under my eyes! I want the eyelash stuff!'
Josie stopped, poised with the eye shadow in front of her, and said profoundly, 'My God. With a face like this, who needs makeup?'
'But I want it!' she begged-- not to be annoying, but because she really had got her hopes up.
'You need nothing,' Josie told her. 'Look at this--' and she ran her finger along under Lisa's eye. 'This is perfect, this colour here, this pinkish... and of course your complexion is perfect-- people would kill to be as pretty as you are.'
'Besides,' I said, 'the whole point of makeup is to look better. And you're already gorgeous.'
Lisa's pretty bright-blue eyes went wide. 'I am?'
'In high school, you would be the prettiest one there,' Josie told her, crowding beside her so they could both see themselves in my little mirror. 'Maybe a little here, or here....'
'She has to have a bath,' I said.
'Well,' Josie said, 'we can practise then, just a little.'
Lisa fidgeted impatiently, but she did receive expert Josie's magic touch. Mother came up half an hour later and we were all in my bathroom, all of us naked-- but very well made-up, thank you! --and just shook her head and smiled. 'Mummy!' Lisa said, standing on the potty lid and batting her eyes. 'Josie says I'm the prettiest one!'
Mother laughed. 'But of course you are! And now for your bath.'
'Will this wash off?'
'Oh, sure,' Josie told her. 'But you can always put more on another time.'
'Tomorrow?' eager Lisa wondered.
We all shrugged. 'Maybe.'
So apparently we have made her a promise.
...
Josie came home with us after our dinner out with girls' club. She had not brought anything with her to stay over but we three realised she certainly wouldn't need anything she couldn't get from Jessy, that is if she would need anything to wear at all-- and she already has a toothbrush here.
We were on our own most of the day, just lolling round the house and sunning and swimming. Actually neither Jessy nor I have lost much sun colour at all-- our tans were all the rage with the girls in Norwich and we must have looked like starlets from St Tropez to them! Josie has not been inattentive to hers either and is now-- may I pronounce it with all proper fanfare-- without ANY bikini patches at all. She resembles Jessy a lot, in both complexion and figure and, though she is really more like a light brunette than a dark blonde, with so much sun her hair is very light and looks terrific. She has been letting it grow (like Jessy has) and it's now past her shoulders and getting a little wavy from being kept in a ponytail on top of her head. Jessy's hair is, of course, absolutely fabulous, long and curly, even kinky, and true blonde, now lightened to a brilliant gold by the summer sun, falling well past her shoulders to nearly the small of her back when she chooses to wear it down. Today it was all piled on top of her head, as though she were going to a formal. The three of us put on sneakers and strolled out along the path into the preserve, which is adjacent to the softball field, and along the way Josie persuaded her to take out the clips and let it fall loose. I swear she looked like a wild jungle princess. I honestly do envy her.
Josie tends to spend a lot of time looking at me, I guess because I am older and tend to be the one who sets an example. But really I only do what I believe is prudent and respectable, you know. Josie doesn't have any siblings and being a Gemini (ha!) she has always looked for some close friend or someone to latch onto so that she's one of a pair. Jessy (a Leo) is very independent and, as I have said before, probably more conservative than I am, so she is a pretty good one for someone like Josie to follow.
Our parents were to come home this afternoon, so this would put an end to at least most of our lolling round naked. Nevertheless we did spend a lovely afternoon round the pool, and when Lisa's happy, shrill voice rang out in the house we were all in the water. 'Josie's here!' she observed, standing at the end of the pool in her new sneakers and socks and her little pink shorts and tropical shirt over her lavender swimsuit, gazing down at the three of us. 'What have you guys been doing?'
'Hi, Daddy,' Jessy called, seeing him step out the French windows.
'I might have guessed,' he said wryly at us.
I leaned on my hands on top of the coping and smiled up at him. Jessy and Josie were cowering along the edge beside me. 'Hullo, Mr C,' Josie called up.
'Hullo yourself,' he said. 'Everything safe and sound? House is okay?'
'Of course,' I said. 'Roger's been looking in, you know.'
'Where did he take off to?'
I shrugged. 'Delaware,' I said, meaning our other house, or the hangar where the cars are. 'I think.'
He nodded. 'I'll call him. It's just been you three then, right? Please tell me it has been.'
'Of course, Daddy!' Jessy said, and then suddenly arced over backwards and dove upside-down into the water. Josie turned and laughed at her-- but she wasn't about to do such a showy manœuvre with our father standing there able to see it.
He went back in and Lisa squatted down in front of me and asked me more about what we've been doing. I told her about the walk over to the ball field. She started to get undressed to join us but then Mother came out and called her in. They had just got here and already she was starting dinner. 'Is Josie staying?' she called.
'If that's all right,' Josie smiled.
'It's always all right,' said Mother, and she went back in.
When Jessy reported that she heard the electric door going up in the garage we figured Daddy was far enough out of range for us to dash in to the house. Of course, you know, Jessy and I don't mind. This is mainly out of respect for Josie, whose situation here is much different from ours.
For dinner we all dressed in shorts and t-shirts, including Josie who borrowed from Jessy. Afterwards we played with J.J. and Lisa in the basement play room, getting out trucks and blocks and Barbies and having the kind of fun you always wish you could still have, so long as your peers in school don't hear about it-- even though they wish the same thing. Later we each showered, and the three of us ended up in Jessy's room, lying about the carpet, pouring over fashion magazines and debating this look or that one. It got dark, we put on a lamp or two, and in the low light all of us looked much tanner than we already are. Someone came up with the idea of playing with makeup and before long we were all doing makeovers on each other in my bathroom. This is the kind of thing only someone like Josie could thrive on, since she is less modest than Jessy and I are and a little more materialistic, or appearance-oriented. In other words she is a little more normal! Lisa was sent up for her bath-- which I usually start for her-- but dallied long enough amongst us that Josie finally beckoned her over to do something with her too. Lisa was, of course, thrilled-- but of course doing a makeover on a six-year-old is pointless.
'I want that dark stuff!' she said. 'I want blue under my eyes! I want the eyelash stuff!'
Josie stopped, poised with the eye shadow in front of her, and said profoundly, 'My God. With a face like this, who needs makeup?'
'But I want it!' she begged-- not to be annoying, but because she really had got her hopes up.
'You need nothing,' Josie told her. 'Look at this--' and she ran her finger along under Lisa's eye. 'This is perfect, this colour here, this pinkish... and of course your complexion is perfect-- people would kill to be as pretty as you are.'
'Besides,' I said, 'the whole point of makeup is to look better. And you're already gorgeous.'
Lisa's pretty bright-blue eyes went wide. 'I am?'
'In high school, you would be the prettiest one there,' Josie told her, crowding beside her so they could both see themselves in my little mirror. 'Maybe a little here, or here....'
'She has to have a bath,' I said.
'Well,' Josie said, 'we can practise then, just a little.'
Lisa fidgeted impatiently, but she did receive expert Josie's magic touch. Mother came up half an hour later and we were all in my bathroom, all of us naked-- but very well made-up, thank you! --and just shook her head and smiled. 'Mummy!' Lisa said, standing on the potty lid and batting her eyes. 'Josie says I'm the prettiest one!'
Mother laughed. 'But of course you are! And now for your bath.'
'Will this wash off?'
'Oh, sure,' Josie told her. 'But you can always put more on another time.'
'Tomorrow?' eager Lisa wondered.
We all shrugged. 'Maybe.'
So apparently we have made her a promise.
...
More intense decompression
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Under threat of a drizzle I came inside and am sitting here in my room, my usual room, up stairs at Terncote in Virginia. It has been a very dizzying three weeks! But England is always England and that is the best part about it, so it is worth any amount of airplane rides and waiting in queues. Daddy said once, after his first tour there, in the '80s, that there'll always be an England because people in England say that there'll always be an England. Or, as people would say now, it is what it is. And that is why you go to see it.
A few things changed in the year since we were there last. Of course the house we had taken is let again, this time to a nice American doctor and his wife whom everyone knows and likes. It is a lovely all-brick multi-gabled house from about 1870 with a red-gravel garden walk and a bright blue door above which is the room Jessy and I had for two years. There is a dovecote in the eave, there are mice in the garage and rabbits live under the back steps. In back is a garden that trips down gentle terracing to the preserve, which is mostly overgrown behind the house but spreads out into a marvellous copse of wild fruit trees and thick green grass. I used to wander out there by myself and take off my clothes and inhale the sweet wet fragrances of the woods, and it was like I was getting high on the whole idea of being there, being naked, being free and happy, and being myself (which of course is how I am since we have come back and have lived here). Once on a fine English summer afternoon I lay down naked in a bed of that thick grass and stared up through a few gaps in the trees at the clouds passing by, and I was there over an hour like that till I realised people would be wondering about me. It is a unique memory-- for I only ever got to do that once-- and something I know only I will ever appreciate. But it is the kind of innocent indulgence that Jessy and I do here, now, and I know that no one else really fully understands it.
Our friends from HOH have all moved along with their lives-- some are dating new people, some are not dating any more, some have left the school, which is very sad. English schools thrive on people being committed to them, but it is always a case of 'school choice' as it is called here, and there are always times when someone leaves before 5th or 6th year and is missed horribly. Even less welcome, I did run into Henry, the boy I dated during 4th and part of 5th year, who is a year older and having completed 6th form, with honours, moves on to university. 'You look well, Janine,' he said to me. I blushed (WHY?). I do look well. From so much sun I am tanner and my face is clearer and I am probably a little better shaped, but his opinion can't possibly matter to me now. Still I suppose it was inevitable we would meet, if only at the food court in the shopping arcade, and I handled it as well as I could have. My journal from that time is still kept in handwritten notes and is not on this computer. I let my stepmother read it once and she got as far as the part when Henry was petting me under my skirt and I had not said 'no' yet, and she put it away and said, 'No, thank you, Janine!' I giggled at that at the time because her journal, most of which she has let me read, is somewhat racier than mine could ever have been (I won't say in what way!) and like hers mine is only honest and accurate, you know. I felt at the time that Henry's 'attempts' (for no, he was never successful in what he wanted from me) were important enough to be included. Now when I look back on it it's pretty embarrassing. This happens to girls all the time, and it's little more than a mild nuisance, and here I was in my journal making it into a momentous occasion. But it was a first for me, and at the time I had wondered how it would be, for the rest of my life, to be able to say that a not-so-blessed event had taken place during my family's two-year stay in England... and how many girls could have said that?
I consider that such an event would have been much worse than 'not so blessed' and it didn't happen there and hasn't here either, and, since Henry has no way of knowing that, I revel in his uncertainty. He may accuse me of 'going back to my own kind' all he wants now. What I have gained from having lived there far outweighs what I would have lost had I followed his wishes.
Also I had on a great little pale-green twill skirt and my sleeveless navy cotton top and looked great that day in the arcade (Jessy said some other guys were watching me). So Henry can suffer.
Speaking of Jessy she did-- well, after we had arrived at Lady B's- let me know that a certain little-more blessed event had taken place when she went in to change and wash up in the airplane toilet on the way over. We had taken a change of things for the ride, just to arrive feeling fresh. I had not really taken advantage of it, feeling much too sleepy (I napped in Lady B's car halfway up the A11) and you know the experience of getting out of everything in the tiny airplane toilet just to change your panties is just too much effort. Last time I tried it I bumped the latch on the door and it opened (only a little) and that was too disconcerting to forget this time. But Jessy climbed past my seat and went in there with her little bag, and of course, being Jessy, she took much more advantage of the opportunity than I had expected. She told me that night in bed.
'You didn't!' I said.
She nodded, somewhat proud of herself.
'That's why you were in there so long?'
'It almost didn't come,' she said. 'And then it got frustrating.'
'You didn't have to!' I said.
'Yes, but I wanted to try it, to say I've done it.'
I giggled. 'How was it?'
She shrugged in the bed. 'It got pretty hard to keep my mouth shut.'
Airplane toilets are hardly secure, you know. One must be very quiet no matter what business you are doing.
'So were you short of breath?' I teased. You know, because the air in an airliner is pressurised only to about 8000 feet, so it would be like doing it whilst up in the Rockies. Hence the expression 'mile-high club'.
'Yes,' she said. 'But not because of the cabin.'
I laughed at her. Well-- that is one event she can say for ever that she's done.
There were many more adventures we had on our trip and I will attempt to relate some of them as this blog proceeds. For now I will say that when we got in to Philadelphia on Tuesday evening we were all very exhausted and drove out to the beach house (in NJ) straight away, where there was a party of some friends and relatives that went quite late. Little J.J. slept through it all-- he tends to sleep very well. I, typically for a twit, attempted to live a perfectly normal life in Greenwich DST+5 till Wednesday morning when Jessy and I walked over the dune to the beach and I fell asleep on the blanket for about two or three hours. Passing people thought I was dead. Jessy covered me with a towel against the sun and explained to two men who passed by that I was not hung over, that it was only jet lag. But in a way what the men assumed was correct too, for I am still coming down from the reverie of having been to England again.
This morning Roger arrived and drove Jessy and me home to Terncote in order than we may keep some engagements, specifically a dinner with the girls' club tonight. As the car pulled up in the yard I kicked off my shoes. As we walked up the steps I unbuttoned the shirt. We carried our own bags in to the house, leaving Roger to take the car back on his own. Jessy went round opening windows in the back to the sea air. I dropped my bags in the front hall with the shirt. I peeled down my shorts and left them in the parlour. I opened the French windows and went out, prising off the bra and leaving it on the step. I shimmied out of the panties on the terrace and dove straight into the pool. Jessy came out and giggled at me. But I felt absolutely great and within ten minutes, after she had joined me, I was swimming my 'usual' 25 laps. Today I did 30. And I still feel great.
Now I sit here in my room, not having got dressed, revelling in all that has happened in this very long and still-incomplete blog. Well-- I have two weeks left in which to finish it before school begins!
And I still haven't picked up my clothes.
...
Under threat of a drizzle I came inside and am sitting here in my room, my usual room, up stairs at Terncote in Virginia. It has been a very dizzying three weeks! But England is always England and that is the best part about it, so it is worth any amount of airplane rides and waiting in queues. Daddy said once, after his first tour there, in the '80s, that there'll always be an England because people in England say that there'll always be an England. Or, as people would say now, it is what it is. And that is why you go to see it.
A few things changed in the year since we were there last. Of course the house we had taken is let again, this time to a nice American doctor and his wife whom everyone knows and likes. It is a lovely all-brick multi-gabled house from about 1870 with a red-gravel garden walk and a bright blue door above which is the room Jessy and I had for two years. There is a dovecote in the eave, there are mice in the garage and rabbits live under the back steps. In back is a garden that trips down gentle terracing to the preserve, which is mostly overgrown behind the house but spreads out into a marvellous copse of wild fruit trees and thick green grass. I used to wander out there by myself and take off my clothes and inhale the sweet wet fragrances of the woods, and it was like I was getting high on the whole idea of being there, being naked, being free and happy, and being myself (which of course is how I am since we have come back and have lived here). Once on a fine English summer afternoon I lay down naked in a bed of that thick grass and stared up through a few gaps in the trees at the clouds passing by, and I was there over an hour like that till I realised people would be wondering about me. It is a unique memory-- for I only ever got to do that once-- and something I know only I will ever appreciate. But it is the kind of innocent indulgence that Jessy and I do here, now, and I know that no one else really fully understands it.
Our friends from HOH have all moved along with their lives-- some are dating new people, some are not dating any more, some have left the school, which is very sad. English schools thrive on people being committed to them, but it is always a case of 'school choice' as it is called here, and there are always times when someone leaves before 5th or 6th year and is missed horribly. Even less welcome, I did run into Henry, the boy I dated during 4th and part of 5th year, who is a year older and having completed 6th form, with honours, moves on to university. 'You look well, Janine,' he said to me. I blushed (WHY?). I do look well. From so much sun I am tanner and my face is clearer and I am probably a little better shaped, but his opinion can't possibly matter to me now. Still I suppose it was inevitable we would meet, if only at the food court in the shopping arcade, and I handled it as well as I could have. My journal from that time is still kept in handwritten notes and is not on this computer. I let my stepmother read it once and she got as far as the part when Henry was petting me under my skirt and I had not said 'no' yet, and she put it away and said, 'No, thank you, Janine!' I giggled at that at the time because her journal, most of which she has let me read, is somewhat racier than mine could ever have been (I won't say in what way!) and like hers mine is only honest and accurate, you know. I felt at the time that Henry's 'attempts' (for no, he was never successful in what he wanted from me) were important enough to be included. Now when I look back on it it's pretty embarrassing. This happens to girls all the time, and it's little more than a mild nuisance, and here I was in my journal making it into a momentous occasion. But it was a first for me, and at the time I had wondered how it would be, for the rest of my life, to be able to say that a not-so-blessed event had taken place during my family's two-year stay in England... and how many girls could have said that?
I consider that such an event would have been much worse than 'not so blessed' and it didn't happen there and hasn't here either, and, since Henry has no way of knowing that, I revel in his uncertainty. He may accuse me of 'going back to my own kind' all he wants now. What I have gained from having lived there far outweighs what I would have lost had I followed his wishes.
Also I had on a great little pale-green twill skirt and my sleeveless navy cotton top and looked great that day in the arcade (Jessy said some other guys were watching me). So Henry can suffer.
Speaking of Jessy she did-- well, after we had arrived at Lady B's- let me know that a certain little-more blessed event had taken place when she went in to change and wash up in the airplane toilet on the way over. We had taken a change of things for the ride, just to arrive feeling fresh. I had not really taken advantage of it, feeling much too sleepy (I napped in Lady B's car halfway up the A11) and you know the experience of getting out of everything in the tiny airplane toilet just to change your panties is just too much effort. Last time I tried it I bumped the latch on the door and it opened (only a little) and that was too disconcerting to forget this time. But Jessy climbed past my seat and went in there with her little bag, and of course, being Jessy, she took much more advantage of the opportunity than I had expected. She told me that night in bed.
'You didn't!' I said.
She nodded, somewhat proud of herself.
'That's why you were in there so long?'
'It almost didn't come,' she said. 'And then it got frustrating.'
'You didn't have to!' I said.
'Yes, but I wanted to try it, to say I've done it.'
I giggled. 'How was it?'
She shrugged in the bed. 'It got pretty hard to keep my mouth shut.'
Airplane toilets are hardly secure, you know. One must be very quiet no matter what business you are doing.
'So were you short of breath?' I teased. You know, because the air in an airliner is pressurised only to about 8000 feet, so it would be like doing it whilst up in the Rockies. Hence the expression 'mile-high club'.
'Yes,' she said. 'But not because of the cabin.'
I laughed at her. Well-- that is one event she can say for ever that she's done.
There were many more adventures we had on our trip and I will attempt to relate some of them as this blog proceeds. For now I will say that when we got in to Philadelphia on Tuesday evening we were all very exhausted and drove out to the beach house (in NJ) straight away, where there was a party of some friends and relatives that went quite late. Little J.J. slept through it all-- he tends to sleep very well. I, typically for a twit, attempted to live a perfectly normal life in Greenwich DST+5 till Wednesday morning when Jessy and I walked over the dune to the beach and I fell asleep on the blanket for about two or three hours. Passing people thought I was dead. Jessy covered me with a towel against the sun and explained to two men who passed by that I was not hung over, that it was only jet lag. But in a way what the men assumed was correct too, for I am still coming down from the reverie of having been to England again.
This morning Roger arrived and drove Jessy and me home to Terncote in order than we may keep some engagements, specifically a dinner with the girls' club tonight. As the car pulled up in the yard I kicked off my shoes. As we walked up the steps I unbuttoned the shirt. We carried our own bags in to the house, leaving Roger to take the car back on his own. Jessy went round opening windows in the back to the sea air. I dropped my bags in the front hall with the shirt. I peeled down my shorts and left them in the parlour. I opened the French windows and went out, prising off the bra and leaving it on the step. I shimmied out of the panties on the terrace and dove straight into the pool. Jessy came out and giggled at me. But I felt absolutely great and within ten minutes, after she had joined me, I was swimming my 'usual' 25 laps. Today I did 30. And I still feel great.
Now I sit here in my room, not having got dressed, revelling in all that has happened in this very long and still-incomplete blog. Well-- I have two weeks left in which to finish it before school begins!
And I still haven't picked up my clothes.
...
06 August 2009
An end, a beginning, and an event in between
Wednesday 5 August 2009
Jessy and I have been here on our own these last two days, 'chilling' (as she says. I never say that). I have resumed swimming 25 laps a day-- in fact I swam it twice yesterday. A lot of good it will do-- after Saturday I won't get a chance to swim, sunbathe or go to the beach till we get back from England. But I am really pretty well-tanned (and I mean all over) by now anyway.
Wait-- it gets worse.
Since we've got home (meaning here at Terncote, that's Virginia) people have been ringing us to get together. We haven't wanted to-- Josie was supposed to come over today (and didn't-- wait) and we have made some plans to go tomorrow night (Thursday) to see HP6 again, down at Lynnhaven, with a group of the girls. Otherwise we are content to do nothing, mostly outside, for as little time as we have left to do nothing.
It was hot yesterday-- there was a threat of rain which didn't happen. I was in my room for a while, escaping the worst of the heat, typing in my novel, and also compiling the stuff I will take on our trip. Jessy updated her FaceBook, which is what she does most of the time. I urged her to get her summer reading done. She's reading 'Their Eyes Were Watching God', which I have read (had to read it last year as before I started at school here in fact), and I have offered to help her do the paper, but she has not seemed interested in it. This is how she is-- she procrastinates till the pressure's on and then does a stellar job in half the time you'd expect anyone to do a so-so job. Well-- I am like that to.
This afternoon I was lying out on my chaise in the side yard. I didn't have anything with me, no book, no sun lotion (put it on in the house) no towel... and no clothes. Neither of us has been dressed since we went to bed on Monday night. Earlier my phone rang and it was Stephen, who left a voicemail message (he never texts) that he wanted to see me, 'to talk'. I knew what that meant. He is going off to UMES in about two weeks-- he will be gone before I get back from England and that will be it for us for the school term. I had expected to drive up and visit him a few times... but there really isn't going to be any kind of 'relationship' in any even slightly exclusive sense. We are friends, and I truly hope we always will be, but we are not really girlfriend-and-boyfriend and I think we're both aware of that. I was only touched that he wanted to see me in person to discuss it, which is only out of respect, which is how it should be. I sent a text-message to him that I would like to see him later, this evening maybe, but I wondered if he would get it. Then I turned off my phone and went outside.
I think Jessy was up stairs at the time. I really don't think anything would have happened the way it did if she had been out in the pool... which is where I thought she was. Neither of us recalled a car pulling up. Normally the gate in the front wall is closed and you need a passcode to get in. The wood beyond where I lie out in the chaise has a chain-link fence the other side of it, with barbed-wire (it was there when we got this property) and there is a perimeter security system here that James Bond couldn't get through. On the other side is the softball field, which is semi-developed as a kind of park or preserve-- that is, mostly tall grass, some shrubs, whatever trees were there, you know. There is also a tall fence round the softball field-- it's not open to the public though the security system is really only on the building there. The house system goes through the fence between the softball field and us.
On the Bay side is our dock, a rocky and swampy beach, ooky beach grass and a lower version of our wall with another gate. That gate, like the one in front, is on the same axis as the front and back doors, so that if you opened them all you could see straight through the house from the road to the water. This is the Baroque style and something Daddy intended, you know. It's really pretty elegant.
I was lying on my back with one hand over my eyes, half-asleep in the early-afternoon sun. I was so divinely comfortable that I might have stayed there all day. I can get like this, when I don't even know that I don't have any clothes on. And so when I heard the voice I wasn't immediately concerned.
'Janine.'
I turned my head a little and finally had to move my hand up to see. It was Stephen.... walking slowly down from the garden steps. I got an elbow under myself-- and then realised. Oops! Well! --this was an all-new experience for both of us!
I was embarrassed-- I certainly blushed! --but I was not afraid. Why should I have been afraid of Stephen? This is a guy I have dated, on and off, as it's been, because I already respected him as a gentleman, because I knew he respected me, because the whole relationship between us has always been based on trust and admiration and genuine friendship. Though I have had many pleasant moments in his arms (and many pleasant kisses) he has always been mainly a friend, and I really do trust him.
'Sorry,' he said, just about stopping about twelve yards away. 'Are you all right?'
I leaned back on my elbows-- oh, yes, I did cross my legs! --and made a red-faced smile at him. 'Um, yes,' I said.
'I'm sorry... the side gate was open. I was over there-- I'm sorry.'
He was trying very hard not to look at me, but the thing is, no guy could have ignored what he was seeing. To me it just depends on WHY the guy wouldn't ignore it. Stephen does have older and younger sisters, and he's seen as much of them as he was seeing of me, even if only by accident. It was just that he'd never seen ME like this, and I'd never let any guy see me like this (or even close).
'It's all right,' I finally said. 'You, um-- wanted to talk?'
He looked right at me-- at my eyes-- and smiled. 'Well, yes, but-- it can wait.'
I shrugged, gaining my courage back. 'I'm too comfortable to get up... if you don't mind.'
He smiled more. Now he came closer. 'Well... maybe we shouldn't talk about it now.'
'Why not?' Yes-- I really asked that.
'Well, just because.... Well, I wanted to talk about the next couple of weeks, that's all.'
I nodded. 'Okay....'
So he went on, telling me basically what I already know, about his going away to college and me going to England and we really weren't going to have much time between now and after then, so it was probably best that we don't expect too much of each other. 'Although, Janine, I have to say, you kind of make it hard to think about it, well, now.'
I laughed. 'Stephen,' I said, 'it's just me. We're friends. That doesn't change, does it?'
He was sitting in the grass now, about six feet from the chaise, beside me, not quite facing me, so that he had to half turn round to look at me. This is how he shows respect. If he'd wanted to ogle me he wouldn't have had to say a word. He wouldn't have had to pretend he was here for anything else. But Stephen is a gentleman. And that doesn't change. 'No,' he said. 'It doesn't. I just feel like I'm letting you down-- as a friend, even.'
'You're not,' I said. 'You're moving on. You're going to a really terrific new part of your life. In some ways so am I. Believe me... I would respect it a lot less if you tried to make something happen that wasn't going to be able to, and then just attempted to string me along for the odd date every month or so. I mean--' I smiled right at him then-- 'if we want to see each other, or go out to something, we can still have that, right?'
He looked right at me (at my eyes). 'Yes,' he said. 'I would like to think we can.'
'Then we can.'
Now he stared. I didn't mind by now. 'Janine,' he said, 'you do make it hard to think about it all now.'
'I'm sorry,' I said. 'It's just that I'm going to England and staying in someone else's house, and so I won't have a chance to get any sun for the next two weeks. You've got to know how it is there.'
He laughed. 'I guess so.'
We looked each other in the eye. 'I was expecting maybe Josie,' I admitted. 'She's been coming over here recently.'
'And she does as you do? Like this?'
'Oh, sure. Well, you know that Jessy invited her.'
He smiled. He does know about Jessy from what I've told him. 'I might have guessed.'
I thought of something and then said, 'Do you want lunch? We might have something here.'
He nodded. 'Sure... if that's okay.'
I shrugged, looking down at him. 'It's only lunch.'
'Okay.' Then he got up. 'Um... I'll go round to the door. I can wait for you there. If you'd like to....'
I smiled right at him. 'That would be very good of you.'
He smiled back. 'All right.' And he turned and walked away from me, not looking back, till he had gone round the front corner of the house.
I didn't wait a second and ran full-tilt for the garden, ducked in the back door and galloped up the stairs. 'JESSY!' I yelled.
'Whaaaaaat?' she called in a babyish voice. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed with the computer (on FaceBook), naked of course.
I stopped and leaned in her doorway, catching my breath. 'You didn't know my erstwhile boyfriend was in the yard?'
She looked up. 'Stephen? He's here?'
I made a wry face at her. 'Walked right up to me whilst I was lying in the chaise.'
Her mouth dropped open. 'You're kidding!'
I shrugged smugly. 'Not much I could have done, right?'
She giggled. 'Oh my God! Well--' she giggled more-- 'at least it's Stephen!'
And that is the great thing to be grateful for then.
In some shorts and a t-shirt I went down front to let him in. Jessy came down, dressed too, and we fixed sandwiches in the kitchen and sat round the table talking, about England, the ice-cream place, the animal shelter, people we know. Stephen never brought up the awkward situation again-- and he will never hold it against me. Someday when he's away at college he will tell someone that on the day he was amicably breaking up with his high-school girlfriend he happened to see her sunning naked in the yard. A perverted guy will say, 'Did you tap that?' --or whatever guys say, you know. And Stephen will say, 'No. That's not how I am. And it's not how she is either.'
Right, Stephen. It's not. You are a gentleman and I am a lady. And that doesn't change.
...
Jessy and I have been here on our own these last two days, 'chilling' (as she says. I never say that). I have resumed swimming 25 laps a day-- in fact I swam it twice yesterday. A lot of good it will do-- after Saturday I won't get a chance to swim, sunbathe or go to the beach till we get back from England. But I am really pretty well-tanned (and I mean all over) by now anyway.
Wait-- it gets worse.
Since we've got home (meaning here at Terncote, that's Virginia) people have been ringing us to get together. We haven't wanted to-- Josie was supposed to come over today (and didn't-- wait) and we have made some plans to go tomorrow night (Thursday) to see HP6 again, down at Lynnhaven, with a group of the girls. Otherwise we are content to do nothing, mostly outside, for as little time as we have left to do nothing.
It was hot yesterday-- there was a threat of rain which didn't happen. I was in my room for a while, escaping the worst of the heat, typing in my novel, and also compiling the stuff I will take on our trip. Jessy updated her FaceBook, which is what she does most of the time. I urged her to get her summer reading done. She's reading 'Their Eyes Were Watching God', which I have read (had to read it last year as before I started at school here in fact), and I have offered to help her do the paper, but she has not seemed interested in it. This is how she is-- she procrastinates till the pressure's on and then does a stellar job in half the time you'd expect anyone to do a so-so job. Well-- I am like that to.
This afternoon I was lying out on my chaise in the side yard. I didn't have anything with me, no book, no sun lotion (put it on in the house) no towel... and no clothes. Neither of us has been dressed since we went to bed on Monday night. Earlier my phone rang and it was Stephen, who left a voicemail message (he never texts) that he wanted to see me, 'to talk'. I knew what that meant. He is going off to UMES in about two weeks-- he will be gone before I get back from England and that will be it for us for the school term. I had expected to drive up and visit him a few times... but there really isn't going to be any kind of 'relationship' in any even slightly exclusive sense. We are friends, and I truly hope we always will be, but we are not really girlfriend-and-boyfriend and I think we're both aware of that. I was only touched that he wanted to see me in person to discuss it, which is only out of respect, which is how it should be. I sent a text-message to him that I would like to see him later, this evening maybe, but I wondered if he would get it. Then I turned off my phone and went outside.
I think Jessy was up stairs at the time. I really don't think anything would have happened the way it did if she had been out in the pool... which is where I thought she was. Neither of us recalled a car pulling up. Normally the gate in the front wall is closed and you need a passcode to get in. The wood beyond where I lie out in the chaise has a chain-link fence the other side of it, with barbed-wire (it was there when we got this property) and there is a perimeter security system here that James Bond couldn't get through. On the other side is the softball field, which is semi-developed as a kind of park or preserve-- that is, mostly tall grass, some shrubs, whatever trees were there, you know. There is also a tall fence round the softball field-- it's not open to the public though the security system is really only on the building there. The house system goes through the fence between the softball field and us.
On the Bay side is our dock, a rocky and swampy beach, ooky beach grass and a lower version of our wall with another gate. That gate, like the one in front, is on the same axis as the front and back doors, so that if you opened them all you could see straight through the house from the road to the water. This is the Baroque style and something Daddy intended, you know. It's really pretty elegant.
I was lying on my back with one hand over my eyes, half-asleep in the early-afternoon sun. I was so divinely comfortable that I might have stayed there all day. I can get like this, when I don't even know that I don't have any clothes on. And so when I heard the voice I wasn't immediately concerned.
'Janine.'
I turned my head a little and finally had to move my hand up to see. It was Stephen.... walking slowly down from the garden steps. I got an elbow under myself-- and then realised. Oops! Well! --this was an all-new experience for both of us!
I was embarrassed-- I certainly blushed! --but I was not afraid. Why should I have been afraid of Stephen? This is a guy I have dated, on and off, as it's been, because I already respected him as a gentleman, because I knew he respected me, because the whole relationship between us has always been based on trust and admiration and genuine friendship. Though I have had many pleasant moments in his arms (and many pleasant kisses) he has always been mainly a friend, and I really do trust him.
'Sorry,' he said, just about stopping about twelve yards away. 'Are you all right?'
I leaned back on my elbows-- oh, yes, I did cross my legs! --and made a red-faced smile at him. 'Um, yes,' I said.
'I'm sorry... the side gate was open. I was over there-- I'm sorry.'
He was trying very hard not to look at me, but the thing is, no guy could have ignored what he was seeing. To me it just depends on WHY the guy wouldn't ignore it. Stephen does have older and younger sisters, and he's seen as much of them as he was seeing of me, even if only by accident. It was just that he'd never seen ME like this, and I'd never let any guy see me like this (or even close).
'It's all right,' I finally said. 'You, um-- wanted to talk?'
He looked right at me-- at my eyes-- and smiled. 'Well, yes, but-- it can wait.'
I shrugged, gaining my courage back. 'I'm too comfortable to get up... if you don't mind.'
He smiled more. Now he came closer. 'Well... maybe we shouldn't talk about it now.'
'Why not?' Yes-- I really asked that.
'Well, just because.... Well, I wanted to talk about the next couple of weeks, that's all.'
I nodded. 'Okay....'
So he went on, telling me basically what I already know, about his going away to college and me going to England and we really weren't going to have much time between now and after then, so it was probably best that we don't expect too much of each other. 'Although, Janine, I have to say, you kind of make it hard to think about it, well, now.'
I laughed. 'Stephen,' I said, 'it's just me. We're friends. That doesn't change, does it?'
He was sitting in the grass now, about six feet from the chaise, beside me, not quite facing me, so that he had to half turn round to look at me. This is how he shows respect. If he'd wanted to ogle me he wouldn't have had to say a word. He wouldn't have had to pretend he was here for anything else. But Stephen is a gentleman. And that doesn't change. 'No,' he said. 'It doesn't. I just feel like I'm letting you down-- as a friend, even.'
'You're not,' I said. 'You're moving on. You're going to a really terrific new part of your life. In some ways so am I. Believe me... I would respect it a lot less if you tried to make something happen that wasn't going to be able to, and then just attempted to string me along for the odd date every month or so. I mean--' I smiled right at him then-- 'if we want to see each other, or go out to something, we can still have that, right?'
He looked right at me (at my eyes). 'Yes,' he said. 'I would like to think we can.'
'Then we can.'
Now he stared. I didn't mind by now. 'Janine,' he said, 'you do make it hard to think about it all now.'
'I'm sorry,' I said. 'It's just that I'm going to England and staying in someone else's house, and so I won't have a chance to get any sun for the next two weeks. You've got to know how it is there.'
He laughed. 'I guess so.'
We looked each other in the eye. 'I was expecting maybe Josie,' I admitted. 'She's been coming over here recently.'
'And she does as you do? Like this?'
'Oh, sure. Well, you know that Jessy invited her.'
He smiled. He does know about Jessy from what I've told him. 'I might have guessed.'
I thought of something and then said, 'Do you want lunch? We might have something here.'
He nodded. 'Sure... if that's okay.'
I shrugged, looking down at him. 'It's only lunch.'
'Okay.' Then he got up. 'Um... I'll go round to the door. I can wait for you there. If you'd like to....'
I smiled right at him. 'That would be very good of you.'
He smiled back. 'All right.' And he turned and walked away from me, not looking back, till he had gone round the front corner of the house.
I didn't wait a second and ran full-tilt for the garden, ducked in the back door and galloped up the stairs. 'JESSY!' I yelled.
'Whaaaaaat?' she called in a babyish voice. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed with the computer (on FaceBook), naked of course.
I stopped and leaned in her doorway, catching my breath. 'You didn't know my erstwhile boyfriend was in the yard?'
She looked up. 'Stephen? He's here?'
I made a wry face at her. 'Walked right up to me whilst I was lying in the chaise.'
Her mouth dropped open. 'You're kidding!'
I shrugged smugly. 'Not much I could have done, right?'
She giggled. 'Oh my God! Well--' she giggled more-- 'at least it's Stephen!'
And that is the great thing to be grateful for then.
In some shorts and a t-shirt I went down front to let him in. Jessy came down, dressed too, and we fixed sandwiches in the kitchen and sat round the table talking, about England, the ice-cream place, the animal shelter, people we know. Stephen never brought up the awkward situation again-- and he will never hold it against me. Someday when he's away at college he will tell someone that on the day he was amicably breaking up with his high-school girlfriend he happened to see her sunning naked in the yard. A perverted guy will say, 'Did you tap that?' --or whatever guys say, you know. And Stephen will say, 'No. That's not how I am. And it's not how she is either.'
Right, Stephen. It's not. You are a gentleman and I am a lady. And that doesn't change.
...
Decompression
Monday evening 3 August 2009
Jessy and I left after tea, drove down to the Ferry, had an expensive supper in the terminal and ended up on the boat as the sun was going down on the Bay. This is a rare sight and a lovely treat. We sat outside in the wind, still in our swimsuits with t-shirts on over them, inhaling of the rare southeast breeze that carried salt spray and took our hair apart. Then it was a long and somewhat exhausting drive down through eastern Maryland and into the Virginia peninsula. I have grown to dislike this part of the journey-- the Maryland state troopers are everywhere, I hate their brown cars, they have this stupid law than in a construction zone you have to switch on your headlamps, and the scenery, though green and pristine and beautifully rural, becomes monotonous. I chose the shore road and went off 13 directly after 175. Jessy was asleep and didn't notice a thing.
Now we are both home and back in our own rooms. The castle is dark and still and even cool-- Roger was over some time in the week and reset the air-conditioning and light and sprinkler timers and I feel like I don't even belong here. At once I flung up my windows to that sea breeze, took off all my clothes, and draped myself over the bed for a nap. But I could not sleep, and now I am typing.
Becky rang-- she's coming over tomorrow. Jessy thinks we should just greet her like we are and see what she says about it. She's heard, but never experienced it, you know. Maybe she will want to. I really don't mind. I have had half a mind (and not much else) to go for a dip in the pool tonight-- it's been so long since I've done laps. But there will be bugs out. The county sprays round here but I can see the bugs on my screens so I don't know when they were round last.
When we are alone in this house we never feel like eating. The last week we were here alone I lost two pounds. It's no use blaming Mother-- it's not that what she makes is so filling. She makes the best food she knows how to and I never eat more than I should, really. I just don't happen to eat when I don't have to. Besides there is nothing fresh to eat in this whole house. There's not even any milk.
My parents will be home on Thursday, and then on Friday evening we're having a little premature party for Jessy's 16th. Rita and Josie and everyone from our circle here will come. Jessy's birthday is really not till St Mary's Day, the 15th, but we'll be in England then. On Thursday the 13th our parents and our little ones will join us over there and we'll have another party with our friends from HOH. This is how it is in this house... we have multiple parties for everything.
Since Jessy did Lisa's hair for her party, Lisa asked if she can do Jessy's. And Jessy assented... so this will be interesting, probably even funny. Actually, in spite of being lush and gorgeous and capable of causing jealous girls to commit crimes in order to wish they had hair like hers, Jessy's hair is actually pretty easy to manage. It is naturally curly, so curly that you need to brush it wet, and as soon as you do it starts springing back. For the beach she just yanks it all back in a ponytail that looks like a plume of blondness. For a party she does the same, only with wetting it first, to buy more time before it springs back, and a bit of hairspray and/or some clips. Someone suggested she cut it once and there came that characteristic Jessy glare, when she looks at the poor cretin like he'd said the oddest thing anyone could ever have said. You might as well have said 'The Martians are eating your rice' as 'You should cut your hair short some time.'
Speaking of a plume of hair I just remembered why I wanted to type this. (I am in serious need of decompression. Please don't expect more blogs till we get to England!) I did delete the guy we met on the beach, who had recognised me from AOL. How had he known? There were literally thousands of blonde chicks in bikinis on the beach this morning! How he could have put two and two-- and two and two-- together is beyond me. I suppose it just goes to show how close I get myself to too much risk. It's a fascination I have-- I tend to wade into risky (risqué) situations just to see how well I can handle myself so close to the devil's lair. I have never really fallen-- oh, there have been time when I ought to have kept my mouth shut and times I really felt out of my depth-- but I am a good girl and there's no cause for worry. It's just that sometimes my own too-trusting nature gets me in a little further than is best for me.
One of the things I like to do when we're alone in the house is dress up, for no real reason, only because I can. Right now my hair is all put up on my head like it might be for prom or if I were going to a wedding. And I was standing in front of the full-height mirror wearing nothing but my cross charm and my good white church shoes, which are like 2-1/2" heels. And I called out to Jessy and asked her what she thought. She giggled and said I looked like I was modelling, and she brought in her camera and took some randy-looking photos of me. We loaded them onto my computer (and hers, to avoid using email) and I have been seriously wondering if I would ever have the guts to send them out. Well, they really are good pictures. And you know me-- I wouldn't pose too inappropriately. It's just that I'm not ashamed of myself, and I just wish we lived in a world where other people could appreciate a certain amount of beauty in being natural and innocent and cute. Maybe that's only a fantasy that I have.
I am glad I have Jessy to keep me grounded. And I am glad we have put four and a half hours between the AOL stalker creep and where we are safe and sound.
...
Jessy and I left after tea, drove down to the Ferry, had an expensive supper in the terminal and ended up on the boat as the sun was going down on the Bay. This is a rare sight and a lovely treat. We sat outside in the wind, still in our swimsuits with t-shirts on over them, inhaling of the rare southeast breeze that carried salt spray and took our hair apart. Then it was a long and somewhat exhausting drive down through eastern Maryland and into the Virginia peninsula. I have grown to dislike this part of the journey-- the Maryland state troopers are everywhere, I hate their brown cars, they have this stupid law than in a construction zone you have to switch on your headlamps, and the scenery, though green and pristine and beautifully rural, becomes monotonous. I chose the shore road and went off 13 directly after 175. Jessy was asleep and didn't notice a thing.
Now we are both home and back in our own rooms. The castle is dark and still and even cool-- Roger was over some time in the week and reset the air-conditioning and light and sprinkler timers and I feel like I don't even belong here. At once I flung up my windows to that sea breeze, took off all my clothes, and draped myself over the bed for a nap. But I could not sleep, and now I am typing.
Becky rang-- she's coming over tomorrow. Jessy thinks we should just greet her like we are and see what she says about it. She's heard, but never experienced it, you know. Maybe she will want to. I really don't mind. I have had half a mind (and not much else) to go for a dip in the pool tonight-- it's been so long since I've done laps. But there will be bugs out. The county sprays round here but I can see the bugs on my screens so I don't know when they were round last.
When we are alone in this house we never feel like eating. The last week we were here alone I lost two pounds. It's no use blaming Mother-- it's not that what she makes is so filling. She makes the best food she knows how to and I never eat more than I should, really. I just don't happen to eat when I don't have to. Besides there is nothing fresh to eat in this whole house. There's not even any milk.
My parents will be home on Thursday, and then on Friday evening we're having a little premature party for Jessy's 16th. Rita and Josie and everyone from our circle here will come. Jessy's birthday is really not till St Mary's Day, the 15th, but we'll be in England then. On Thursday the 13th our parents and our little ones will join us over there and we'll have another party with our friends from HOH. This is how it is in this house... we have multiple parties for everything.
Since Jessy did Lisa's hair for her party, Lisa asked if she can do Jessy's. And Jessy assented... so this will be interesting, probably even funny. Actually, in spite of being lush and gorgeous and capable of causing jealous girls to commit crimes in order to wish they had hair like hers, Jessy's hair is actually pretty easy to manage. It is naturally curly, so curly that you need to brush it wet, and as soon as you do it starts springing back. For the beach she just yanks it all back in a ponytail that looks like a plume of blondness. For a party she does the same, only with wetting it first, to buy more time before it springs back, and a bit of hairspray and/or some clips. Someone suggested she cut it once and there came that characteristic Jessy glare, when she looks at the poor cretin like he'd said the oddest thing anyone could ever have said. You might as well have said 'The Martians are eating your rice' as 'You should cut your hair short some time.'
Speaking of a plume of hair I just remembered why I wanted to type this. (I am in serious need of decompression. Please don't expect more blogs till we get to England!) I did delete the guy we met on the beach, who had recognised me from AOL. How had he known? There were literally thousands of blonde chicks in bikinis on the beach this morning! How he could have put two and two-- and two and two-- together is beyond me. I suppose it just goes to show how close I get myself to too much risk. It's a fascination I have-- I tend to wade into risky (risqué) situations just to see how well I can handle myself so close to the devil's lair. I have never really fallen-- oh, there have been time when I ought to have kept my mouth shut and times I really felt out of my depth-- but I am a good girl and there's no cause for worry. It's just that sometimes my own too-trusting nature gets me in a little further than is best for me.
One of the things I like to do when we're alone in the house is dress up, for no real reason, only because I can. Right now my hair is all put up on my head like it might be for prom or if I were going to a wedding. And I was standing in front of the full-height mirror wearing nothing but my cross charm and my good white church shoes, which are like 2-1/2" heels. And I called out to Jessy and asked her what she thought. She giggled and said I looked like I was modelling, and she brought in her camera and took some randy-looking photos of me. We loaded them onto my computer (and hers, to avoid using email) and I have been seriously wondering if I would ever have the guts to send them out. Well, they really are good pictures. And you know me-- I wouldn't pose too inappropriately. It's just that I'm not ashamed of myself, and I just wish we lived in a world where other people could appreciate a certain amount of beauty in being natural and innocent and cute. Maybe that's only a fantasy that I have.
I am glad I have Jessy to keep me grounded. And I am glad we have put four and a half hours between the AOL stalker creep and where we are safe and sound.
...
01 August 2009
Time for a cold shower
Saturday 1 August 2009
I got home from working this morning and-- naturally, and as you might guess-- got undressed straight away. Well-- this is only sensible since I may wear the same clothes when I go in tonight. All our costumes are all natural fibres, which 'breathe' well but also can get somewhat... ripe. I usually change over my shift and stockings from morning to evening... but it's totally 'in period' to wear a gown and bedjacket that might not be so 'fresh', you know... and of course we don't wear makeup and do little with our hair-- no curling, no straightening, no highlights or dye, you know.
When I sat down at the computer the yard-care people were out. They come on Saturdays and are supposed to start at 11 and be done by noon. Of course they work very fast, with their loud whining machines, edging, whacking weeds, clipping bushes and so on. We don't have much here, being on the dune line, but Daddy was very careful to plant scrubby pines and cedar bushes which help hold the sand down. Very few people seem to care about this, making dune erosion such a big deal. (My dad tried to lobby for a reduction in his property taxes based on having so much planted here, saying that 'his' share of the beach maintenance costs, for both these houses-- ours and the rental-- were probably less than some others'. Needless to say they turned this down.)
Someone asked me once if the yard-care guys are good-looking. I don't usually go in for ogling the help. It's low-class. The sad thing is that so many Americans don't understand this concept. Everyone is so 'equal' in the United States that we don't seem to think it's odd for a girl whose father pays labourers to be attracted to one of those sweaty labourers. Maybe having been raised so very English and having gone to school there has altered my way of thinking, and maybe I am just the odd one out then.
All right, there is one cute one... he's about my age, very well-tanned, very well-shaped, with good teeth. I have seen him smile at me before. I said 'Good morning' to him once and then if he happens to see me, like coming back from work in my Colonial costume, he always says hello. I do not know his name though. Part of me wants to make sure I never do.
This morning I happened to look out this window as the noisemaking machines came round this side of the house and he was there. I got very embarrassed and sat back down, away from the window. Of course he would not see me, even if he knew I was up here looking down-- the screen makes the window opaque and it's on the third floor anyway, 18 feet above his head and the yard is only 18 feet wide down there, so he wouldn't have the angle (sorry about relying on trigonometry here) and he wouldn't have been able to see much below my shoulders anyway... but still it is very weird being totally naked in your own room and looking down on the bare back of an ordinarily good-looking young guy, who is known for smiling at you, who is just a decent middle-class guy in excellent health who chooses, to support his university tuition, to labour as a yard-care worker in the summer.
I wonder if I should have a shower now before I go to the beach with Jessy. It would have to be a cool one.
...
I got home from working this morning and-- naturally, and as you might guess-- got undressed straight away. Well-- this is only sensible since I may wear the same clothes when I go in tonight. All our costumes are all natural fibres, which 'breathe' well but also can get somewhat... ripe. I usually change over my shift and stockings from morning to evening... but it's totally 'in period' to wear a gown and bedjacket that might not be so 'fresh', you know... and of course we don't wear makeup and do little with our hair-- no curling, no straightening, no highlights or dye, you know.
When I sat down at the computer the yard-care people were out. They come on Saturdays and are supposed to start at 11 and be done by noon. Of course they work very fast, with their loud whining machines, edging, whacking weeds, clipping bushes and so on. We don't have much here, being on the dune line, but Daddy was very careful to plant scrubby pines and cedar bushes which help hold the sand down. Very few people seem to care about this, making dune erosion such a big deal. (My dad tried to lobby for a reduction in his property taxes based on having so much planted here, saying that 'his' share of the beach maintenance costs, for both these houses-- ours and the rental-- were probably less than some others'. Needless to say they turned this down.)
Someone asked me once if the yard-care guys are good-looking. I don't usually go in for ogling the help. It's low-class. The sad thing is that so many Americans don't understand this concept. Everyone is so 'equal' in the United States that we don't seem to think it's odd for a girl whose father pays labourers to be attracted to one of those sweaty labourers. Maybe having been raised so very English and having gone to school there has altered my way of thinking, and maybe I am just the odd one out then.
All right, there is one cute one... he's about my age, very well-tanned, very well-shaped, with good teeth. I have seen him smile at me before. I said 'Good morning' to him once and then if he happens to see me, like coming back from work in my Colonial costume, he always says hello. I do not know his name though. Part of me wants to make sure I never do.
This morning I happened to look out this window as the noisemaking machines came round this side of the house and he was there. I got very embarrassed and sat back down, away from the window. Of course he would not see me, even if he knew I was up here looking down-- the screen makes the window opaque and it's on the third floor anyway, 18 feet above his head and the yard is only 18 feet wide down there, so he wouldn't have the angle (sorry about relying on trigonometry here) and he wouldn't have been able to see much below my shoulders anyway... but still it is very weird being totally naked in your own room and looking down on the bare back of an ordinarily good-looking young guy, who is known for smiling at you, who is just a decent middle-class guy in excellent health who chooses, to support his university tuition, to labour as a yard-care worker in the summer.
I wonder if I should have a shower now before I go to the beach with Jessy. It would have to be a cool one.
...
When I am doing nothing
Friday 31 July 2009
I got a call at about 9.00 to go in to the shop to cover for one of our servers, so I rushed through getting dressed and got out of the place, in my good yellow-and-cream gown, at like 9.30. One good thing about working in a Colonial-themed place is that you don't have to wear makeup! --in fact you shouldn't! Only actresses and harlots (which in the 18th C were pretty much the same thing) wore face paint., you know.
Whilst I was working Jessy went out 'to lunch' with some of her friends here. Mother came with JJ and Lisa and picked me up in the car. When I got back Jessy had left me a text message inviting me to come along... but when I called her she didn't pick up and I realised they were probably seeing HP6 again down at the Beach. So I came up here, got out of my outfit, and went online.
This constituted most of my afternoon then. The sun has been going in and out of clouds all morning and I hadn't decided if I wanted to get dressed just to lie out and get nothing for it. Besides, I'm tan enough! Lisa came up, as naked as I am, and asked if I was going to the beach. But then Mother called her back down. 'No one's going anywhere till after lunch!'
Lisa rolled her eyes and went back down. I descended most of the way and called down, 'Mother! I'm not hungry, so do I have to eat?'
Then her sweet voice came back, from round the corner in the dining room, 'Not if you don't want to, sweetheart. But no unfair snacks later then!'
'Yes, Mother,' I called, and came back up here.
People were chatting and I was too busy with that to do much writing for myself. Lisa came back and promised to go to the beach with me whenever I wanted to. She was, of course, still naked in the house but suggested we could wear our bandanna bikinis (see blog from yesterday). 'When will you want to?' she asked, standing a foot from my elbow as I typed and rocking side-to-side on her heels as she does.
I reached over and pinched her. 'We'll wait till you've settled your stomach first, okay?'
'Okay!' she said, and went back down.
I went down for a banana later (oh, do not ASK what people online thought of that!) and found Mother sitting out on the deck, in her chaise, reading. She was in her good blue-and-black print bikini and looked absolutely gorgeous... as usual. I should remind you all that 'Mother', my stepmother, is 27. She was our nanny till after Mommy died. Lisa and JJ are hers and Jessy and I are Mommy's. Lisa will be 6 in a week. She is as precocious as any child of Mother's could be expected to be, adorable, fiercely brave, sweet-natured, and absolutely enraptured with Jessy who is almost exactly 10 years older. This afternoon little JJ, who is 3-1/2, was arranging trucks and blocks all over the deck. He's never naked-- he says it is for girls and is probably getting protective over his maleness anyway-- and was in a cute little bikini swimsuit like Daddy wears in the pool. And Lisa was naked, both of them slathered heavily in SPF 60 and playing on our nice big white-painted cedar deck that extends from the front door and the parlour to the dunes. I thought it was charming and cute that the two of them had both Barbies and trucks all over the deck, playing somewhat separately and yet sometimes together in the sun. Daddy strung a 'safety net' under the lower railing mainly to keep dolls and trucks from going overboard. It's green and tends to become opaque in bright sunlight, so Lisa crawling round the deck with JJ was pretty much safe from prying eyes on the street, which gives access to the beach, or from the walkway leading over the dunes that's between our house and the one we rent out next door.
Of course I only peered out the front door (which faces the dune, not the street) from behind the screen door. Mother turned her head and waved back at me. 'I'm not coming out,' I said.
'I should hope not,' she smiled.
'Just wanted to see what you're all doing.'
'They're kind of in the middle of this,' Mother said.
Lisa stood up and padded over to me then. 'Are you coming out to play?'
I smiled. 'Not like I am sweetie!'
She shrugged and then smiled shyly at me. 'Okay,' she said-- recognising that older girls have issues with playing outside naked on a deck visible to the public that younger girls do not. I really believe she would have expected Jessy to join her.
'We'll go for a walk later, okay?'
She nodded and ran right back to the Barbies. I went back up stairs.
Finally round 2.30 I had not heard from Jessy and decided to go out. I put on the pale-blue bandanna bikini, which I had not worn outside yet, and a plain white tanktop and descended to the deck again. 'Are we going out?" Lisa asked, rushing up.
I caught her; her skin was drying and she'd need more SPF 60. 'You need to go up and get your suit,' I said. 'And a top too.'
She ran off for the stairs. 'Can I come too?' JJ asked, rushing up too.
I looked at Mother. 'Do you mind if I take them both? If you want to read....'
'I'll be fine, sweetheart. Go and have fun.'
Lisa brought down the bandanna-bikini, one of the ones Jessy and I made for ourselves that didn't work and got altered for someone smaller, and I sat her on a dining-room chair and tied it up at her hips for her. JJ went to the potty and emerged, and I got them both well coated in sunblock-- as well as myself-- and we descended to the yard and went under the deck to the walkway over the dune. On the beach, which had got hot, we ran down to the water's edge and then wandered off down to the next jetty, about three and a half blocks. We met some people we know, said hello to some new people, got slightly wet-- well, JJ got soaked when he slid in the sand and was overwhelmed by an anklesnapper-- and got some exercise. When I am with our little ones I don't feel a need to be Miss Popular Young Woman In A Swimsuit On The Beach, you know. I feel like a nanny myself sometimes. And I like it. It is really true what Daddy says, that being around children on the beach and in the ocean makes you feel younger. I suppose that is why he has made a lifetime's career about of being youthful and fun and interesting and entertaining!
When we got back Jessy and her friends had come. At once Jessy pointed out to them that I was wearing one of our bandanna-bikini creations. 'That's a bandanna?' her friend Scotia said in amazement.
I giggled, and turned round then. 'Actually it's two,' I said.
'Oh my God!' they all seemed to say at once. 'And you wore that out?'
I shrugged, smiling somewhat proudly now. 'Of course.'
'It was kind of Janine's idea,' Jessy said. 'I have two of them too.'
'And you made that?'
'But it's only cotton!'
'And you wore it to go out?'
They remained amazed. So I have gone from feeling lonely and left-out (and very nearly bored!) to being a role model for girls again. This is the kind of day I like!
...
I got a call at about 9.00 to go in to the shop to cover for one of our servers, so I rushed through getting dressed and got out of the place, in my good yellow-and-cream gown, at like 9.30. One good thing about working in a Colonial-themed place is that you don't have to wear makeup! --in fact you shouldn't! Only actresses and harlots (which in the 18th C were pretty much the same thing) wore face paint., you know.
Whilst I was working Jessy went out 'to lunch' with some of her friends here. Mother came with JJ and Lisa and picked me up in the car. When I got back Jessy had left me a text message inviting me to come along... but when I called her she didn't pick up and I realised they were probably seeing HP6 again down at the Beach. So I came up here, got out of my outfit, and went online.
This constituted most of my afternoon then. The sun has been going in and out of clouds all morning and I hadn't decided if I wanted to get dressed just to lie out and get nothing for it. Besides, I'm tan enough! Lisa came up, as naked as I am, and asked if I was going to the beach. But then Mother called her back down. 'No one's going anywhere till after lunch!'
Lisa rolled her eyes and went back down. I descended most of the way and called down, 'Mother! I'm not hungry, so do I have to eat?'
Then her sweet voice came back, from round the corner in the dining room, 'Not if you don't want to, sweetheart. But no unfair snacks later then!'
'Yes, Mother,' I called, and came back up here.
People were chatting and I was too busy with that to do much writing for myself. Lisa came back and promised to go to the beach with me whenever I wanted to. She was, of course, still naked in the house but suggested we could wear our bandanna bikinis (see blog from yesterday). 'When will you want to?' she asked, standing a foot from my elbow as I typed and rocking side-to-side on her heels as she does.
I reached over and pinched her. 'We'll wait till you've settled your stomach first, okay?'
'Okay!' she said, and went back down.
I went down for a banana later (oh, do not ASK what people online thought of that!) and found Mother sitting out on the deck, in her chaise, reading. She was in her good blue-and-black print bikini and looked absolutely gorgeous... as usual. I should remind you all that 'Mother', my stepmother, is 27. She was our nanny till after Mommy died. Lisa and JJ are hers and Jessy and I are Mommy's. Lisa will be 6 in a week. She is as precocious as any child of Mother's could be expected to be, adorable, fiercely brave, sweet-natured, and absolutely enraptured with Jessy who is almost exactly 10 years older. This afternoon little JJ, who is 3-1/2, was arranging trucks and blocks all over the deck. He's never naked-- he says it is for girls and is probably getting protective over his maleness anyway-- and was in a cute little bikini swimsuit like Daddy wears in the pool. And Lisa was naked, both of them slathered heavily in SPF 60 and playing on our nice big white-painted cedar deck that extends from the front door and the parlour to the dunes. I thought it was charming and cute that the two of them had both Barbies and trucks all over the deck, playing somewhat separately and yet sometimes together in the sun. Daddy strung a 'safety net' under the lower railing mainly to keep dolls and trucks from going overboard. It's green and tends to become opaque in bright sunlight, so Lisa crawling round the deck with JJ was pretty much safe from prying eyes on the street, which gives access to the beach, or from the walkway leading over the dunes that's between our house and the one we rent out next door.
Of course I only peered out the front door (which faces the dune, not the street) from behind the screen door. Mother turned her head and waved back at me. 'I'm not coming out,' I said.
'I should hope not,' she smiled.
'Just wanted to see what you're all doing.'
'They're kind of in the middle of this,' Mother said.
Lisa stood up and padded over to me then. 'Are you coming out to play?'
I smiled. 'Not like I am sweetie!'
She shrugged and then smiled shyly at me. 'Okay,' she said-- recognising that older girls have issues with playing outside naked on a deck visible to the public that younger girls do not. I really believe she would have expected Jessy to join her.
'We'll go for a walk later, okay?'
She nodded and ran right back to the Barbies. I went back up stairs.
Finally round 2.30 I had not heard from Jessy and decided to go out. I put on the pale-blue bandanna bikini, which I had not worn outside yet, and a plain white tanktop and descended to the deck again. 'Are we going out?" Lisa asked, rushing up.
I caught her; her skin was drying and she'd need more SPF 60. 'You need to go up and get your suit,' I said. 'And a top too.'
She ran off for the stairs. 'Can I come too?' JJ asked, rushing up too.
I looked at Mother. 'Do you mind if I take them both? If you want to read....'
'I'll be fine, sweetheart. Go and have fun.'
Lisa brought down the bandanna-bikini, one of the ones Jessy and I made for ourselves that didn't work and got altered for someone smaller, and I sat her on a dining-room chair and tied it up at her hips for her. JJ went to the potty and emerged, and I got them both well coated in sunblock-- as well as myself-- and we descended to the yard and went under the deck to the walkway over the dune. On the beach, which had got hot, we ran down to the water's edge and then wandered off down to the next jetty, about three and a half blocks. We met some people we know, said hello to some new people, got slightly wet-- well, JJ got soaked when he slid in the sand and was overwhelmed by an anklesnapper-- and got some exercise. When I am with our little ones I don't feel a need to be Miss Popular Young Woman In A Swimsuit On The Beach, you know. I feel like a nanny myself sometimes. And I like it. It is really true what Daddy says, that being around children on the beach and in the ocean makes you feel younger. I suppose that is why he has made a lifetime's career about of being youthful and fun and interesting and entertaining!
When we got back Jessy and her friends had come. At once Jessy pointed out to them that I was wearing one of our bandanna-bikini creations. 'That's a bandanna?' her friend Scotia said in amazement.
I giggled, and turned round then. 'Actually it's two,' I said.
'Oh my God!' they all seemed to say at once. 'And you wore that out?'
I shrugged, smiling somewhat proudly now. 'Of course.'
'It was kind of Janine's idea,' Jessy said. 'I have two of them too.'
'And you made that?'
'But it's only cotton!'
'And you wore it to go out?'
They remained amazed. So I have gone from feeling lonely and left-out (and very nearly bored!) to being a role model for girls again. This is the kind of day I like!
...
30 July 2009
The bandanna bikini
Thursday 30 July 2009
Long ago when we lived in Delaware, after Daddy married our nanny, our new mother taught Jessy and I at home as though we were girls of 250 years ago. And so to make it fun we dressed in our Colonial outfits, (even Mother) and sat every morning in the little tea room, read prayers, had lessons in two or three subjects a day (always including reading) and then had tea at 11.00. After that we had homework time and after lunch we went out to play in the yard, or walk the beach, or swim in the pool, or practise our crafts with Mother. And one of the crafts we learned was hand sewing. Mommy had begun to teach us and our nanny too, so when our nanny became our new mother she continued our sewing lessons. We made bonnets and capes and pockets and aprons as well as several sizes' worth of Colonial dresses-- and we still do make them and as a result I have six full outfits, most of which I wear to work Mommy's Colonial-themed ice-cream shop, and we still attend reenactment events when we can (even England, like last year).
Jessy and I were always encouraged to experiment and try new things, in art, music, and crafts. A few summers ago Jessy had the bizarre idea of making a swimsuit. She chose an old blue bedsheet, made pretty good patterns from a bikini she already owned, cut it out, hemmed it, did beautiful work really, and then one summer's day she bravely pranced out of the sewing room in her very pretty bedsheet bikini. The halter top tied in back and behind her neck and the bottom tied in knots at her hips. It was actually bvery cute and fit her surprisngly well.
I was somewhat envious and quickly set to work on my own. Jessy's sheet was a Martha Stewart one from K-Mart that was part polyester, but I used an old and rather well-worn white percale sheet (actually from my bed). And instead of making lace and sewing it to the corners to tie it, I just twisted the corners of the leftover fabric and managed to tie them at my back and at my hips. It was very cute and we were all impressed-- all of us except Mother who raised her eyebrows and made a sly smirk that I still remember. Then Jessy, who had already gone swimming in hers, prodded me to test it. Of course we went into the pool before trying it out at the beach-- it was much safer, and you can imagine why it mattered. Jessy was only 11 then-- she turned 12 later that summer. But I was 13-1/2. And there is a BIG difference between a girl almost 12 wearing a swimsuit she made out of a piece of dark-blue cotton-blend and a girl of 13-1/2 wearing one she made out of a well-bleached, well-worn all white cotton bedsheet. Let us just say that once I stood up, and Jessy and I had a look at how I looked in it dripping wet, it was the last time I would wear it in front of my parents!
One of the several things we learned that day (besides the value of garment LINING!) was that it's fun to make our own things. We've since made plenty of our own clothes, though not much in the way of swimwear intended for a public beach. Recently Jessy has been collecting colourful cotton bandannas and this past week we each had an opportunity sit down at the sewing machine and put some of them together. First Jessy made a skirt-- it's very '60s really, all bandannas, all the same size but of different colours and patterns, turned on edge, creased once, and sewn on an angle so that it flares out off her hips. She also made a very cute bikini top out of two of them sewn together which she wears just tied (snugly!) round herself. She has the figure for that, you know.
I don't have a figure that would tolerate anything like that, but I started a bikini bottom out of two bandannas that really made Jessy envious this time. We experimented some more, tearing stitches out a few times to redo and get it right. One I went so far as to finish before finding it was much too low-cut (it would not reach enough to tie!) so I altered it for little Lisa who absolutely loves it. But we did get it right and now we each have two. I will probably make at least another one soon.
It's very simple really. You bring two 20" square cotton bandannas (use a print that's opaque!) together at one point. Lay the point of the one that will be the back over the one that will be the front, then slide it up till you have enough doubled fabric to serve as a lining. I prefer to cut off the point itself and then fold in what will be the leg openings, front and back, till the crutch is about three inches wide (as much or as little as you dare-- this works for me). I fold them each on a little angle so that near the top of the front and from about halfway up my bottom they are not folded under any more but just one layer of fabric. You don't use elastic so it's really crucial that you get the fit right. As it turns out the front is always a little lower and therefore narrower than the back. If you get this wrong it looks terrible (the one that became Lisa's was like this). Sew the straight seam across what will be the bottom and then the leg openings, which you can along the sides. We each have double-stitched these.
When this is together you just sit on it on your bed, bring up the front and back start rolling from the point inwards to your body, neatly and tightly till you can pull it closely about yourself, and then tie them at your hips. (The first few times I stuck a paperclip on the rolled-up front so I could then do the back.) You might need to try it several times till you arrive at how you like to wear it. If you can't get it to tie right or fit right after three or four tries you probably have the two bandannas lapped incorrectly-- the front too far up or the back too far down. Actually when mine fit right there is quite a lot of material rolled up and it actually makes it very comfortable.
Of course if you make it like this, it doesn't matter what size you are. A 20"-square cotton bandanna, like the ones at Dollar Tree, where we got them, when folded in half diagonally has a sine/cosine of 28 inches. That's each half, front and back. If you can't tie it round yourself having over 55 inches to reach round your hips, maybe you shouldn't be wearing a bandanna bikini!
Jessy's first one is made of two identical bandannas in that very common East Indian print on baby-blue. Her second one is made of two in the same watercolour pattern but of varying colours. Both mine are in the East Indian print, one dull brick-red in back and yellow in front and one in navy-blue in back and the same baby-blue as Jessy's in front. The one I gave to Lisa is pink and pale green (her two favourite colours anyway... see how that works?). Jessy is making one for Mother now too-- of course Mother is only 27 and has a beautiful bikini body as well. She admitted the other night she had tried making a handkerchief bikini at about the same age I was when I made my first failed attempt out of a white bedsheet-- though the handkerchiefs were a linen blend (dry-clean only! --ha!) she learned the same lesson about translucency when wet-- and that's why she looked at me sceptically before I had tried out mine in the pool!
I wore the brick-red-and-yellow one to the beach today, along with a plain swimsuit top in the same medium grey as the print on the bandannas. It was very comfortable to lie out in and I went down to stand with Lisa (in hers too) by the water as well. Two ladies asked where I'd got it. Most everyone else seemed to like it too.
(But no, I did NOT go into the water in it!)
...
Long ago when we lived in Delaware, after Daddy married our nanny, our new mother taught Jessy and I at home as though we were girls of 250 years ago. And so to make it fun we dressed in our Colonial outfits, (even Mother) and sat every morning in the little tea room, read prayers, had lessons in two or three subjects a day (always including reading) and then had tea at 11.00. After that we had homework time and after lunch we went out to play in the yard, or walk the beach, or swim in the pool, or practise our crafts with Mother. And one of the crafts we learned was hand sewing. Mommy had begun to teach us and our nanny too, so when our nanny became our new mother she continued our sewing lessons. We made bonnets and capes and pockets and aprons as well as several sizes' worth of Colonial dresses-- and we still do make them and as a result I have six full outfits, most of which I wear to work Mommy's Colonial-themed ice-cream shop, and we still attend reenactment events when we can (even England, like last year).
Jessy and I were always encouraged to experiment and try new things, in art, music, and crafts. A few summers ago Jessy had the bizarre idea of making a swimsuit. She chose an old blue bedsheet, made pretty good patterns from a bikini she already owned, cut it out, hemmed it, did beautiful work really, and then one summer's day she bravely pranced out of the sewing room in her very pretty bedsheet bikini. The halter top tied in back and behind her neck and the bottom tied in knots at her hips. It was actually bvery cute and fit her surprisngly well.
I was somewhat envious and quickly set to work on my own. Jessy's sheet was a Martha Stewart one from K-Mart that was part polyester, but I used an old and rather well-worn white percale sheet (actually from my bed). And instead of making lace and sewing it to the corners to tie it, I just twisted the corners of the leftover fabric and managed to tie them at my back and at my hips. It was very cute and we were all impressed-- all of us except Mother who raised her eyebrows and made a sly smirk that I still remember. Then Jessy, who had already gone swimming in hers, prodded me to test it. Of course we went into the pool before trying it out at the beach-- it was much safer, and you can imagine why it mattered. Jessy was only 11 then-- she turned 12 later that summer. But I was 13-1/2. And there is a BIG difference between a girl almost 12 wearing a swimsuit she made out of a piece of dark-blue cotton-blend and a girl of 13-1/2 wearing one she made out of a well-bleached, well-worn all white cotton bedsheet. Let us just say that once I stood up, and Jessy and I had a look at how I looked in it dripping wet, it was the last time I would wear it in front of my parents!
One of the several things we learned that day (besides the value of garment LINING!) was that it's fun to make our own things. We've since made plenty of our own clothes, though not much in the way of swimwear intended for a public beach. Recently Jessy has been collecting colourful cotton bandannas and this past week we each had an opportunity sit down at the sewing machine and put some of them together. First Jessy made a skirt-- it's very '60s really, all bandannas, all the same size but of different colours and patterns, turned on edge, creased once, and sewn on an angle so that it flares out off her hips. She also made a very cute bikini top out of two of them sewn together which she wears just tied (snugly!) round herself. She has the figure for that, you know.
I don't have a figure that would tolerate anything like that, but I started a bikini bottom out of two bandannas that really made Jessy envious this time. We experimented some more, tearing stitches out a few times to redo and get it right. One I went so far as to finish before finding it was much too low-cut (it would not reach enough to tie!) so I altered it for little Lisa who absolutely loves it. But we did get it right and now we each have two. I will probably make at least another one soon.
It's very simple really. You bring two 20" square cotton bandannas (use a print that's opaque!) together at one point. Lay the point of the one that will be the back over the one that will be the front, then slide it up till you have enough doubled fabric to serve as a lining. I prefer to cut off the point itself and then fold in what will be the leg openings, front and back, till the crutch is about three inches wide (as much or as little as you dare-- this works for me). I fold them each on a little angle so that near the top of the front and from about halfway up my bottom they are not folded under any more but just one layer of fabric. You don't use elastic so it's really crucial that you get the fit right. As it turns out the front is always a little lower and therefore narrower than the back. If you get this wrong it looks terrible (the one that became Lisa's was like this). Sew the straight seam across what will be the bottom and then the leg openings, which you can along the sides. We each have double-stitched these.
When this is together you just sit on it on your bed, bring up the front and back start rolling from the point inwards to your body, neatly and tightly till you can pull it closely about yourself, and then tie them at your hips. (The first few times I stuck a paperclip on the rolled-up front so I could then do the back.) You might need to try it several times till you arrive at how you like to wear it. If you can't get it to tie right or fit right after three or four tries you probably have the two bandannas lapped incorrectly-- the front too far up or the back too far down. Actually when mine fit right there is quite a lot of material rolled up and it actually makes it very comfortable.
Of course if you make it like this, it doesn't matter what size you are. A 20"-square cotton bandanna, like the ones at Dollar Tree, where we got them, when folded in half diagonally has a sine/cosine of 28 inches. That's each half, front and back. If you can't tie it round yourself having over 55 inches to reach round your hips, maybe you shouldn't be wearing a bandanna bikini!
Jessy's first one is made of two identical bandannas in that very common East Indian print on baby-blue. Her second one is made of two in the same watercolour pattern but of varying colours. Both mine are in the East Indian print, one dull brick-red in back and yellow in front and one in navy-blue in back and the same baby-blue as Jessy's in front. The one I gave to Lisa is pink and pale green (her two favourite colours anyway... see how that works?). Jessy is making one for Mother now too-- of course Mother is only 27 and has a beautiful bikini body as well. She admitted the other night she had tried making a handkerchief bikini at about the same age I was when I made my first failed attempt out of a white bedsheet-- though the handkerchiefs were a linen blend (dry-clean only! --ha!) she learned the same lesson about translucency when wet-- and that's why she looked at me sceptically before I had tried out mine in the pool!
I wore the brick-red-and-yellow one to the beach today, along with a plain swimsuit top in the same medium grey as the print on the bandannas. It was very comfortable to lie out in and I went down to stand with Lisa (in hers too) by the water as well. Two ladies asked where I'd got it. Most everyone else seemed to like it too.
(But no, I did NOT go into the water in it!)
...
26 July 2009
The mother of all thunderstorms
Sunday 26 July 2009-- NJ shore
The mother of all thunderstorms is about to descend upon us. I sit here in my little attic room, facing west-- away from the ocean-- with scarcely a breeze to move the sweat on my skin. The weather has come round to the Northeast-- it's the side this house is exposed to least. I worked this morning and after the beach I had a shower, so I was clean about an hour ago, but in this intense humidity and stillness that's of little help now. Jessy has been a good angel, playing with J.J. and Lisa since Mother and Daddy went out to dinner. They've been gone a while, so they've gone somewhere else too. This is Sunday evening so the traffic coming back up from Beach Haven will be a nightmare. They probably elected to stay down there, doing shopping or something, till later, which is wise. It's not like we don't have it under control here.
She made them a microwave pizza and they've been sitting down watching 'Mulan' in the TV room, Last I went down, for more iced tea, little J.J. was sitting at his small table surrounded by Transformers half acting out scenes of the movie with them. Lisa was stretched out on the carpet, stark naked, against her fluffy floor pillow, like a miniature princess. This is Jessy's influence-- I always say so. Jessy loves being pampered, even if she has to pamper herself. She's a bit frustrated still having to be in panties till tomorrow, but you can tell what she'd be wearing if she could be and she's such a good-natured little angel that it's hardly a hassle to her really.
I am clear now and haven't put anything on after the shower. I went round down there checking windows-- an odd thing to do with no clothes on! --but Jessy had them all closed and the draperies drawn on the beach side. It's because of the storm. Peering out I saw sand blowing round. The beach is entirely empty and the sky is gone threateningly dark. I will be glad for this storm because it should cool us off after two extremely hot days... but it is scary to see in its early stages and the little ones were upset with the sight of it.
Thunder rolls hard out at sea. The whole house rumbles with it. If we lose power the AirPort will still work, as will the security system and that whole computer network, but the little ones will lose the TV in the TV room as the generator doesn't carry all the outlets here. I was thinking of having something to eat but won't risk it till I know it's passed. I wonder why Mother has not called yet-- I wonder if they do not see this storm as it looks up here. They may only be in the restaurant. Jessy and I were to go to a party tonight but it sure looks like it won't be on. I wouldn't go there and linger round a hot sweaty house with too many idiots drinking too much for anything in the world.
Mother rang Jessy-- I have had the news of it. They just got to the car and will come up the Island directly. Daddy took her out in the old Buick-- the '65 convertible. It's funny-- in those wide bucket seats they sit about three feet apart! Petite Mother looks like a little girl! But the hood is new and they won't have leaks (like in the other one) though they have no AC in that car and will be sweating rivulets when the arrive! Jessy and I will put the little ones into the bath (one at a time now, for Lisa will not share with her brother any more) and cool them off. Mother will have a good long soak in her own. Daddy will check all the windows and phone half the people he knows out of worry-- it's what he does. I will stay up in my room naked and sweating. And chat online if I can.
...
The mother of all thunderstorms is about to descend upon us. I sit here in my little attic room, facing west-- away from the ocean-- with scarcely a breeze to move the sweat on my skin. The weather has come round to the Northeast-- it's the side this house is exposed to least. I worked this morning and after the beach I had a shower, so I was clean about an hour ago, but in this intense humidity and stillness that's of little help now. Jessy has been a good angel, playing with J.J. and Lisa since Mother and Daddy went out to dinner. They've been gone a while, so they've gone somewhere else too. This is Sunday evening so the traffic coming back up from Beach Haven will be a nightmare. They probably elected to stay down there, doing shopping or something, till later, which is wise. It's not like we don't have it under control here.
She made them a microwave pizza and they've been sitting down watching 'Mulan' in the TV room, Last I went down, for more iced tea, little J.J. was sitting at his small table surrounded by Transformers half acting out scenes of the movie with them. Lisa was stretched out on the carpet, stark naked, against her fluffy floor pillow, like a miniature princess. This is Jessy's influence-- I always say so. Jessy loves being pampered, even if she has to pamper herself. She's a bit frustrated still having to be in panties till tomorrow, but you can tell what she'd be wearing if she could be and she's such a good-natured little angel that it's hardly a hassle to her really.
I am clear now and haven't put anything on after the shower. I went round down there checking windows-- an odd thing to do with no clothes on! --but Jessy had them all closed and the draperies drawn on the beach side. It's because of the storm. Peering out I saw sand blowing round. The beach is entirely empty and the sky is gone threateningly dark. I will be glad for this storm because it should cool us off after two extremely hot days... but it is scary to see in its early stages and the little ones were upset with the sight of it.
Thunder rolls hard out at sea. The whole house rumbles with it. If we lose power the AirPort will still work, as will the security system and that whole computer network, but the little ones will lose the TV in the TV room as the generator doesn't carry all the outlets here. I was thinking of having something to eat but won't risk it till I know it's passed. I wonder why Mother has not called yet-- I wonder if they do not see this storm as it looks up here. They may only be in the restaurant. Jessy and I were to go to a party tonight but it sure looks like it won't be on. I wouldn't go there and linger round a hot sweaty house with too many idiots drinking too much for anything in the world.
Mother rang Jessy-- I have had the news of it. They just got to the car and will come up the Island directly. Daddy took her out in the old Buick-- the '65 convertible. It's funny-- in those wide bucket seats they sit about three feet apart! Petite Mother looks like a little girl! But the hood is new and they won't have leaks (like in the other one) though they have no AC in that car and will be sweating rivulets when the arrive! Jessy and I will put the little ones into the bath (one at a time now, for Lisa will not share with her brother any more) and cool them off. Mother will have a good long soak in her own. Daddy will check all the windows and phone half the people he knows out of worry-- it's what he does. I will stay up in my room naked and sweating. And chat online if I can.
...
15 July 2009
Full house
Tuesday & Wednesday, 14-15 July
Jessy, Josie and I left the castle early in the morning, went over and collected Becky, and got up to the Landing (house at Lewes) in time for lunch. Mother had a nice sandwich platter waiting, of which we girls ate pigs' shares. Well-- I am never much for breakfast and we had got nothing more than a bagel or so before we'd left. We had a nice visit and got to show Becky and Josie round our childhood home, including Mommy's cherished formal flower garden out back, newly rejuvenated by Mother (and a bit of paid help). They were especially touched to see Mommy's memorial stone, just a little statuette of an angel on top of the small square marble tablet lying over where her ashes rest. I was glad to be there at Lewes again-- I have not been there in some months. But I do not need Mommy's beloved house ot her gardens or the actual sight of her memorial tablet to remember her, you know.
We caught a ferry at 3.40 for Cape May. Neither Josie nor Becky had ever been on it. This is how provincial some of the people we have met in the Eastern Shore are. The ferry is a fun ride and Cape May is always a nice stop just for a day-- yet none of them have ever ventured two hours north to even see it. For them it is only a dotted line on a map. Jessy and I indulged them and we all went to the forwardmost gate and pretended to lean out like that scene in 'Titanic'. At least we did till we were scolded for it. Then we went up to the deck and leaned out over the railing there, which is more permissible. Needless to say those two dozen photos will make it on to three or four FaceBook sites shortly!
We did not stay for supper in Cape May but drove up directly to the Island and got settled in at the beach house. Jessy and Josie got the idea to stay in the little attic room, the one on the ocean side, where Lisa and J.J. usually sleep, and that might have been sensible. But in the end we all ended up sleeping all over our own room, the one on the western end of the house-- and when I say 'all over' I mean ALL OVER, for after a long game of 'Apples to Apples' we fell asleep where we were, mostly on the floor, though Becky was half up on top of my bed and when I woke up I found Josie curled up on her side with my foot under her pillow. The place was atrociously sweaty. Jessy and I got out of the house, in costume, for our shift at the shop, leaving Josie and Becky a note. They came down for breakfast at about 9.00, in swimsuits under their shorts and t-shirts, and the went to the beach. Jessy and I met them there-- still in costume of course. Of course people stare when we walk down the beach in-season, dressed like 1750s working girls. We put on smiles and carry hand baskets from which we give out discount coupons. The cards are for a free breakfast or sundae if you buy three, because Mommy always said she'd rather have families than dates. It's a different kind of clientele, one that tends to come back a few times during a vacation and then again and again, year after year. Besides giving away one out of for makes more business sense than giving away half, you know.
We sat with Becky and Josie in their swimsuits only for a few moments and then went up to change. We had successfully got out of working this evening (whilst I am typing this) and so spent the afternoon off on the mainland seeing 'Harry Potter 6' (sad movie, and very dark). We went shopping and got back here.
Tomorrow we will be working the evening shift. We hope to be on the beach most of the day. I always wonder if I will run into any of my online friends there... they ought to know by now how to find me. Till then I wish them luck! (ha)
...
Jessy, Josie and I left the castle early in the morning, went over and collected Becky, and got up to the Landing (house at Lewes) in time for lunch. Mother had a nice sandwich platter waiting, of which we girls ate pigs' shares. Well-- I am never much for breakfast and we had got nothing more than a bagel or so before we'd left. We had a nice visit and got to show Becky and Josie round our childhood home, including Mommy's cherished formal flower garden out back, newly rejuvenated by Mother (and a bit of paid help). They were especially touched to see Mommy's memorial stone, just a little statuette of an angel on top of the small square marble tablet lying over where her ashes rest. I was glad to be there at Lewes again-- I have not been there in some months. But I do not need Mommy's beloved house ot her gardens or the actual sight of her memorial tablet to remember her, you know.
We caught a ferry at 3.40 for Cape May. Neither Josie nor Becky had ever been on it. This is how provincial some of the people we have met in the Eastern Shore are. The ferry is a fun ride and Cape May is always a nice stop just for a day-- yet none of them have ever ventured two hours north to even see it. For them it is only a dotted line on a map. Jessy and I indulged them and we all went to the forwardmost gate and pretended to lean out like that scene in 'Titanic'. At least we did till we were scolded for it. Then we went up to the deck and leaned out over the railing there, which is more permissible. Needless to say those two dozen photos will make it on to three or four FaceBook sites shortly!
We did not stay for supper in Cape May but drove up directly to the Island and got settled in at the beach house. Jessy and Josie got the idea to stay in the little attic room, the one on the ocean side, where Lisa and J.J. usually sleep, and that might have been sensible. But in the end we all ended up sleeping all over our own room, the one on the western end of the house-- and when I say 'all over' I mean ALL OVER, for after a long game of 'Apples to Apples' we fell asleep where we were, mostly on the floor, though Becky was half up on top of my bed and when I woke up I found Josie curled up on her side with my foot under her pillow. The place was atrociously sweaty. Jessy and I got out of the house, in costume, for our shift at the shop, leaving Josie and Becky a note. They came down for breakfast at about 9.00, in swimsuits under their shorts and t-shirts, and the went to the beach. Jessy and I met them there-- still in costume of course. Of course people stare when we walk down the beach in-season, dressed like 1750s working girls. We put on smiles and carry hand baskets from which we give out discount coupons. The cards are for a free breakfast or sundae if you buy three, because Mommy always said she'd rather have families than dates. It's a different kind of clientele, one that tends to come back a few times during a vacation and then again and again, year after year. Besides giving away one out of for makes more business sense than giving away half, you know.
We sat with Becky and Josie in their swimsuits only for a few moments and then went up to change. We had successfully got out of working this evening (whilst I am typing this) and so spent the afternoon off on the mainland seeing 'Harry Potter 6' (sad movie, and very dark). We went shopping and got back here.
Tomorrow we will be working the evening shift. We hope to be on the beach most of the day. I always wonder if I will run into any of my online friends there... they ought to know by now how to find me. Till then I wish them luck! (ha)
...
13 July 2009
An update
Monday 13 July 2009
I have not been on much lately as I have been busy with this and that. Jessy and I have been working pretty regularly at the breakfast & dessert place, in costume of course! Our shifts are pretty much the same, usually Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and then one or both of the days on the weekend. Most often it's been Sunday. This weekend Jessy and I arranged to be off and drove home Friday night, to hang out with the girls at home (meaning Terncote). On Saturday five of them came over and we had a sort of meeting of the girls' club. That evening I had dinner with Stephen and his family whilst Jessy went over to Josie's. Jessy and I went to church on Sunday and had brunch with Rita and Josie after lunch Becky joined us at home. We just hung round the pool and so on. On Sunday evening Josie stayed over as Jessy's guest. As I write this they are both out back, still, even though it's past 7.00 pm.
Josie is the one who has embraced the freedom of being naked round the house as much as Jessy and I have. She even does it at home. Her mother is single and not dating and her younger sister is only about 9 and thinks it's silly, so at least till her mother gets home she will be naked in the house (Jessy and I have been there; we know it's true). The two of them are cute-- I served tea this afternoon and they both sat at the outside table with their ankles crossed and napkins in their laps and used all the most perfect table manners. I understand why Mother does not want us undressed at the dinner table but for me it is no bother especially when we are being proper in every other respect. I promised them some frozen pizza later wen we decide to watch something down in the TV room.
This weekend Daddy and Mother and our little ones are at the house in Lewes-- they sailed down at the end of last week and now the boat rides her mooring off the beach on the Bay (you can see it from the Ferry). Little J.J. always hates the lifejacket and I heard he had to receive some stern words from Daddy about it-- the rule is he is either down below (and that means NOT on the ladder!) or wearing the lifejacket on deck. He has grown grudgingly used to it and plays at typing knots, doing puzzles and 'making wine' (playing in a bucket of seawater in the cockpit). Meanwhile Lisa in her own lifejacket scampers all over the deck and is nearly impossible to restrain. I think being on only 34 feet of boat bores her and makes her feel confined. Mother did say on the phone that she allowed Lisa to take off her swimsuit-- provided she got enough sunblock all over, you know-- and then teased Jessy and me, saying that it reminded her of us and that Lisa's tendency is our fault. I laughed at that. But like Josie she just enjoys the freedom, and it's only harmless.
Tomorrow Jessy and I, with Josie and Becky, drive back up to NJ. We will stop at the house in Lewes for lunch and take a late-afternoon ferry to Cape May. Then of course we will have to work Wednesday, usually our one guaranteed off day, whilst Becky and Rita either sleep in or bask on the beach. There is one good thing about our schedule though and that is that the place is only open 7-11 am and 7-11 pm, which leaves the entire middle of the day open for fun in the sun. Of course it's a public beach and there's no chance for sunning all bare as we do here at Terncote. --though I am sure that after this weekend none of us desperately need more of that (especially in some places!).
I shall make every effort to keep up with my blog a little more frequently than I have been doing over the last month; but honestly it's been very busy this end!
...
I have not been on much lately as I have been busy with this and that. Jessy and I have been working pretty regularly at the breakfast & dessert place, in costume of course! Our shifts are pretty much the same, usually Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and then one or both of the days on the weekend. Most often it's been Sunday. This weekend Jessy and I arranged to be off and drove home Friday night, to hang out with the girls at home (meaning Terncote). On Saturday five of them came over and we had a sort of meeting of the girls' club. That evening I had dinner with Stephen and his family whilst Jessy went over to Josie's. Jessy and I went to church on Sunday and had brunch with Rita and Josie after lunch Becky joined us at home. We just hung round the pool and so on. On Sunday evening Josie stayed over as Jessy's guest. As I write this they are both out back, still, even though it's past 7.00 pm.
Josie is the one who has embraced the freedom of being naked round the house as much as Jessy and I have. She even does it at home. Her mother is single and not dating and her younger sister is only about 9 and thinks it's silly, so at least till her mother gets home she will be naked in the house (Jessy and I have been there; we know it's true). The two of them are cute-- I served tea this afternoon and they both sat at the outside table with their ankles crossed and napkins in their laps and used all the most perfect table manners. I understand why Mother does not want us undressed at the dinner table but for me it is no bother especially when we are being proper in every other respect. I promised them some frozen pizza later wen we decide to watch something down in the TV room.
This weekend Daddy and Mother and our little ones are at the house in Lewes-- they sailed down at the end of last week and now the boat rides her mooring off the beach on the Bay (you can see it from the Ferry). Little J.J. always hates the lifejacket and I heard he had to receive some stern words from Daddy about it-- the rule is he is either down below (and that means NOT on the ladder!) or wearing the lifejacket on deck. He has grown grudgingly used to it and plays at typing knots, doing puzzles and 'making wine' (playing in a bucket of seawater in the cockpit). Meanwhile Lisa in her own lifejacket scampers all over the deck and is nearly impossible to restrain. I think being on only 34 feet of boat bores her and makes her feel confined. Mother did say on the phone that she allowed Lisa to take off her swimsuit-- provided she got enough sunblock all over, you know-- and then teased Jessy and me, saying that it reminded her of us and that Lisa's tendency is our fault. I laughed at that. But like Josie she just enjoys the freedom, and it's only harmless.
Tomorrow Jessy and I, with Josie and Becky, drive back up to NJ. We will stop at the house in Lewes for lunch and take a late-afternoon ferry to Cape May. Then of course we will have to work Wednesday, usually our one guaranteed off day, whilst Becky and Rita either sleep in or bask on the beach. There is one good thing about our schedule though and that is that the place is only open 7-11 am and 7-11 pm, which leaves the entire middle of the day open for fun in the sun. Of course it's a public beach and there's no chance for sunning all bare as we do here at Terncote. --though I am sure that after this weekend none of us desperately need more of that (especially in some places!).
I shall make every effort to keep up with my blog a little more frequently than I have been doing over the last month; but honestly it's been very busy this end!
...
27 June 2009
Home alone
Saturday, 27 June 2009
It was a long and busy week up in NJ. Both Jessy and I have worked almost every shift at the ice-cream parlour since we got up there. We don't take a salary-- it's the family's business, and June is usually a pretty rough start on the season, with most of the girls not knowing what their schedules will be and when they're actually able to be done with school and all. Wednesday we had off completely, and spent the day on the beach with little Lisa. Thursday we were on the the morning, and then Daddy had promised to drive the two of us over to Tuckerton in the jet boat for lunch at Stewart's root beer which is right on the water at the seaport museum there. That was a nice time. The jet boat is blindingly fast, if the water is flat, which it was. I think Daddy said we hit 65 MPH. That feels like about twice that when it's on the water. Jessy and I sat in back by the roar of the motor and squealed like blonde bimbos. Daddy laughed.
We worked Thursday night and then Friday morning, and finally I begged out of one shift in order to see Stephen. Friday evening Roger arrived and drove me down in the dark-green Cadillac to Terncote, where I got dressed in something nice (blue paisley dress and heels) before Stephen showed up to take me to dinner. I felt very elegant, the acting lady of the house when he arrived. I had never been so fully alone here-- the other times my parents and siblings have been absent from home but close by-- now they were over 4 hours' drive away! But, no worries-- it's all proper between us. Stephen just took my hand and handed me into the car and we went out to the nice place on the water in Onancock, where we toasted ourselves on a kind of reunion.
I got in at about 11.00 after a very pleasant walk along the waterfront (I shall not say more!). I just undressed, washed up, and ended up on the computer till late. This morning I awoke rather late and decided I would not care. Daddy rang at about noon, asked how my date had gone, and then wanted to know when I would be back. I felt completely indolent and asked if I could stay on here another day and come back up after church tomorrow.
'Well, I don't see why not,' he said, 'if you really feel like being alone.'
I laughed. 'Well, you know me, Daddy... I'm just doing nothing.'
'Hmmm,' he said. 'As long as there's not something you're not telling me.'
I thought for a moment and realised what he probably meant. 'Daddy! But I tell you everything.'
'All right,' he said.
'Really, I do. Stephen dropped me at the door and we said our goodnights--' I said no more about that-- 'and he made sure I got into the house and left. And I called him when I knew the house was safe. That's all.'
He hesitated on the phone. 'Are you going out today too?'
'Um, no. He's working... and then supposed to go bowling with his people.'
'Oh. So, what will you do today then?'
I shrugged. 'Probably lie out back. I do want to clean my bathroom. I will clean Jessy's too, if I'm not a total mess. That's about it.'
'All right. Your mother wants someone to look in on the geraniums. You might weed a little back there too. You'll be out in the sun, and....'
'Yes, Daddy. All right. I will do that.'
'Keep to the house and the garden,' he told me. 'Call us if you're going out and when you get back. I don't want to not hear from you today.'
I smiled. 'Yes, Daddy.'
So I did clean my bathroom, I did get to be a total mess, and I crawled-- actually crawled-- from mine out my door and across the hall to the one Jessy and Lisa use and I did theirs too. Usually I clean my bathroom before I get dressed, often in connection with having a shower, like on a weekend. It's a messy job and some cleaners can damage clothing dyes, you know. By the time I was done with that I smelled of Lysol and my hands were all dried out and I still had not had a shower, so I rinsed out all the cleaning stuff and left the bathroom fans on and windows open, and I went down stairs and dove right into the pool. And I did about twelve laps and then lolled in the corner of the pool staring up at the sun till I decided I had better put on sunblock.
I lay in the chaise at the side of the house for about two hours. This is extraordinarily long for me-- I had on SPF 45 and kept turning over, but I really do think I got unusually dark today. Daddy had said to keep to the garden, but it becomes hot there inside the surrounding wall and the sun reflection off green grass is always cooler than that off paving blocks and potting soil. There is a 'fringe', as we call it, of tall untended grass about five yards wide separating the lawn from the salt marsh of the bay, and it grows tall enough that boaters really can't see us lying in the chaises here. So it's safe enough. However I did hear a peculiarly smooth engine drone approaching. The sound of a boat approaching usually waves with the water-- it's never a single steady tone. I opened my eyes and there, coming right down the edge of the bay, was a high-winged airplane. I had my hand over my eyes against the sun and there was no chance to cover myself... so apparently I was a vision for the pilot and his passengers down here on the chaise as they flew right over me at about 60 MPH and about 250 feet up. Oh, well.
When I got up I had another dip in the pool and then went in for tea. I really have done nothing much of anything at all-- definitely have not weeded or swept out back and definitely don't want to now. I will go to church in the morning-- in the Regal-- and drive up by myself to the ferry at Lewes. I really should stop in at the old house but I am supposedly working at the parlour at 7 and would like to get there early. Also, I miss Jessy. All that remains is to find a good book to read on the ferry ride-- I have read pretty much everything in this room already....
It was a long and busy week up in NJ. Both Jessy and I have worked almost every shift at the ice-cream parlour since we got up there. We don't take a salary-- it's the family's business, and June is usually a pretty rough start on the season, with most of the girls not knowing what their schedules will be and when they're actually able to be done with school and all. Wednesday we had off completely, and spent the day on the beach with little Lisa. Thursday we were on the the morning, and then Daddy had promised to drive the two of us over to Tuckerton in the jet boat for lunch at Stewart's root beer which is right on the water at the seaport museum there. That was a nice time. The jet boat is blindingly fast, if the water is flat, which it was. I think Daddy said we hit 65 MPH. That feels like about twice that when it's on the water. Jessy and I sat in back by the roar of the motor and squealed like blonde bimbos. Daddy laughed.
We worked Thursday night and then Friday morning, and finally I begged out of one shift in order to see Stephen. Friday evening Roger arrived and drove me down in the dark-green Cadillac to Terncote, where I got dressed in something nice (blue paisley dress and heels) before Stephen showed up to take me to dinner. I felt very elegant, the acting lady of the house when he arrived. I had never been so fully alone here-- the other times my parents and siblings have been absent from home but close by-- now they were over 4 hours' drive away! But, no worries-- it's all proper between us. Stephen just took my hand and handed me into the car and we went out to the nice place on the water in Onancock, where we toasted ourselves on a kind of reunion.
I got in at about 11.00 after a very pleasant walk along the waterfront (I shall not say more!). I just undressed, washed up, and ended up on the computer till late. This morning I awoke rather late and decided I would not care. Daddy rang at about noon, asked how my date had gone, and then wanted to know when I would be back. I felt completely indolent and asked if I could stay on here another day and come back up after church tomorrow.
'Well, I don't see why not,' he said, 'if you really feel like being alone.'
I laughed. 'Well, you know me, Daddy... I'm just doing nothing.'
'Hmmm,' he said. 'As long as there's not something you're not telling me.'
I thought for a moment and realised what he probably meant. 'Daddy! But I tell you everything.'
'All right,' he said.
'Really, I do. Stephen dropped me at the door and we said our goodnights--' I said no more about that-- 'and he made sure I got into the house and left. And I called him when I knew the house was safe. That's all.'
He hesitated on the phone. 'Are you going out today too?'
'Um, no. He's working... and then supposed to go bowling with his people.'
'Oh. So, what will you do today then?'
I shrugged. 'Probably lie out back. I do want to clean my bathroom. I will clean Jessy's too, if I'm not a total mess. That's about it.'
'All right. Your mother wants someone to look in on the geraniums. You might weed a little back there too. You'll be out in the sun, and....'
'Yes, Daddy. All right. I will do that.'
'Keep to the house and the garden,' he told me. 'Call us if you're going out and when you get back. I don't want to not hear from you today.'
I smiled. 'Yes, Daddy.'
So I did clean my bathroom, I did get to be a total mess, and I crawled-- actually crawled-- from mine out my door and across the hall to the one Jessy and Lisa use and I did theirs too. Usually I clean my bathroom before I get dressed, often in connection with having a shower, like on a weekend. It's a messy job and some cleaners can damage clothing dyes, you know. By the time I was done with that I smelled of Lysol and my hands were all dried out and I still had not had a shower, so I rinsed out all the cleaning stuff and left the bathroom fans on and windows open, and I went down stairs and dove right into the pool. And I did about twelve laps and then lolled in the corner of the pool staring up at the sun till I decided I had better put on sunblock.
I lay in the chaise at the side of the house for about two hours. This is extraordinarily long for me-- I had on SPF 45 and kept turning over, but I really do think I got unusually dark today. Daddy had said to keep to the garden, but it becomes hot there inside the surrounding wall and the sun reflection off green grass is always cooler than that off paving blocks and potting soil. There is a 'fringe', as we call it, of tall untended grass about five yards wide separating the lawn from the salt marsh of the bay, and it grows tall enough that boaters really can't see us lying in the chaises here. So it's safe enough. However I did hear a peculiarly smooth engine drone approaching. The sound of a boat approaching usually waves with the water-- it's never a single steady tone. I opened my eyes and there, coming right down the edge of the bay, was a high-winged airplane. I had my hand over my eyes against the sun and there was no chance to cover myself... so apparently I was a vision for the pilot and his passengers down here on the chaise as they flew right over me at about 60 MPH and about 250 feet up. Oh, well.
When I got up I had another dip in the pool and then went in for tea. I really have done nothing much of anything at all-- definitely have not weeded or swept out back and definitely don't want to now. I will go to church in the morning-- in the Regal-- and drive up by myself to the ferry at Lewes. I really should stop in at the old house but I am supposedly working at the parlour at 7 and would like to get there early. Also, I miss Jessy. All that remains is to find a good book to read on the ferry ride-- I have read pretty much everything in this room already....
17 June 2009
An invited guest
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
It is morning-I am up. I must be going for a record-- I have not had on a stitch (not counting shoes) since Sunday afternoon... that's what? --two and a half days, and will be three and a half by tomorrow. It's just been too pleasant. And Daddy is still away-- Mother got a call from him last night that he had driven down to the house in Lewes last night to pick up things for the boat and drove right back up to his brother's house in NJ. He asked if Jessy or I wanted to come along and I think at least I was in bed by then and Mother said we were just having too nice a time here to be disturbed. I am sure he knew what that meant.
Mother is full of happy thoughts and happy comments and cute little smiles, as though she likes being queen of a house full of naked girls. Yesterday she was in a bikini all day-- her blue-and-white striped one. She honestly looks about 20 in a bikini. (She's 27 and has had two babies.) Together we have all been gardening, raking, sweeping, even doing a bit of painting like round beyond the garage. Little J.J. (age 3-1/2) is the only male-- and may I say the only one of us who doesn't work. He's built a sand village in the side yard, bordered by the tall grass along the water, the tall grass and shrubs along the preserve, the garage and the garden wall. It's probably fifty feet on a side and is pretty well planned-- there are a few houses (stacks of bricks) and roads between them all and the place is cluttered with trucks and cars. Lisa and Jessy sometimes go over there and help him. He is grateful for the help, rather like a young king (or prince in this case) newly proud of his own domains. No one challenges his authority over Sandtown and so he remains placated.
The surprise this week is that Jessy's friend Josie came over. Mother of course for the door, having put on her cover-up shirt, and gave Josie fair warning. 'Oh,' Josie said, 'well if she doesn't mind--!'
Jessy appeared on the mezzanine above her-- naked of course. 'Come on up!' she said-- and thus the situation was resolved. Next I saw of them they were both skipping-- I mean really SKIPPING-- out the back door, and I went out with Lisa later and joined them. So Josie has become the very first one of our friends to take up with us as we are. I expected her to be concerned about sunburn but she was actually not very white at all. --hmm! Wonder why? We were all very clinical with each other as far as sharing the sun lotion and had a very pleasant afternoon together. Mother rang her little bell for tea on the terraces and we all attended-- four of us this time-- none of us dressed at all. Mother had this sly little smile on the whole time. She secretly envies us, but she won't indulge it herself. I'm sure she thinks it is not her place. So she only encourages us in our indulgence instead.
Many people have asked me about that and have said it is odd that our parents do not do as we do. I am sure they have their own reasons for asking. I am sure too that many of them do not believe it is how it is for us. But our parents are very proper and responsible. I'm not saying other people's aren't-- though that may be true-- but our parents do not have a need to indulge every little whim that pops into their heads without caring about the consequences. In fact you could say that caring about the consequences is exactly what both my parents do best. Daddy teaches us that we are girls and ladies first, and one should never burden or obligate a lady. If he does not know how we would take to his being naked with us, he will not insist that we do, and of course he would be concerned about how we would come to accept all men based on his example (and I mean in terms of behaviour). And anyway he has no need or desire to be naked like we are.
Mother is something else entirely, a perfectly beautiful young woman with needs and desires not much different than those Jessy and I have. The difference is of course that she is married. She feels awkward revealing too much of herself after she has been 'known' (for lack of a better word) by our father. She considers that inappropriate. And of course, as in the Bible, a parent should not be naked in front of her own child, in this case Lisa and J.J. It's just a little awkward thinking that the children can see where they came from! Of course in the case of Jessy and me, those two conditions do not exist-- we are still 'children' in every good sense of the word and at least in one way our bodies can have no effect on the rest of our family. (I do have a suspicion-- perhaps more than a mere suspicion-- that Mother is much less prudish in private with our father, but I really think that shouldn't be something I think about or discuss too often. They are happy as they are and that's all that should matter to a child or stepchild.)
As for Josie... well I shall say that she has taken to it very easily. She and Jessy disappeared into her room, the door was not even fully closed, as we all knew who was in the house at the time, and not five minutes later the two of them emerged, giggling quietly, and trotted down the stairs to the big parlour. In another moment I had looked out my window and seen them going through the garden for the side yard. Jessy even remembered to bring the other chaise for Josie. That meant they expected me to join them... so I did. We sunned and swam and sunned and swam some more all afternoon. By tea-time Josie was as at-ease as we ever are, not even flinching when she saw Mother bringing the tea things to the terrace. 'How are you girls enjoying the day?' Mother asked us all.
'It's lovely,' Jessy said. 'Are there biscuits?'
Mother set down the tray as we all drew out chairs. 'There are, but I was going to heat them up first.'
'Heat them up?' wondered Jessy.
'Well, it's not too hot,' Mother said. 'But you girls have had nothing but sun over there.'
We all agreed the biscuits did not have to be heated up and took our places. Mother returned with the biscuits on a tray and leaned in to set them down. Josie looked up then. 'Thank you, Mrs C--,' she said sweetly.
Mother smiled right back at her. 'You are very welcome, Josie. Do you girls mind if J.J. and I join you?'
I saw Josie glance at me then. Jessy did not hesitate. 'Mother! Do you have to ask?'
Mother giggled and turned to get the other chair. Then we all six of us were seated under the umbrella having (hot) tea and biscuits, chatting about our impressions of the day.
Josie would have to go home for dinner. Very reluctantly she moped up stairs after Jessy. They were up there till Josie's mother pulled in to the front yard. Mother called up to remind them. In her cute shorts and tank-top Josie hurried out along the front gallery and down the stairs, Jessy following her naked, and in the foyer they said good-byes. I said mine from the mezzanine. Mother, in her blue-and-white bikini and cover-up shirt, stepped in at the last moment. 'I'll get that,' she said, and interposed herself between Jessy and the front door. That was a good thing-- Jessy might have got it herself, and what would Josie's mother have thought then?
Mother waved cheerfully out the front door as Josie got in to the car with her mother and they drove away. The electric gate closed. Then she shut the door. 'Well, you two had quite a day,' she said wryly at us.
Jessy only shrugged and turned to come up stairs. 'It was nice that she came over. I did invite her, you know.'
Mother smiled. 'I'm sure.'
Jessy stopped halfway up the stairs. 'Is it all right if she comes over tomorrow?'
Mother made that face again. 'Have you already invited her?'
I did not see but Jessy must have nodded then.
'Very well. Your father comes home tomorrow night or Friday. Just so you know, now.'
'Yes, Mother, of course.' And she started up the stairs again. Later in the evening I happened to pop in her room and she was sitting in her bed with her knees up and the laptop propped on her legs, typing furiously. Seeing me she looked up, and then I could guess the content of her typing. 'Do you think the rest of the club would ever.--? You know.'
I laughed. 'Do you really think they should?'
She shrugged. 'We have to have a pool party before we go,' she said. 'It has to be Friday, when he gets here with the boat.'
I nodded. 'I think we had better not. Not this soon.'
She nodded at once as though that was a perfectly reasonable response, and then she typed more, as furiously as ever. She attacks the keyboard, not hard, but so quickly you swear the picture's running in fast-motion. 'Josie agrees,' she said after a moment. 'But she's looking forward to coming over again.'
I smiled. 'She's always welcome,' I said. 'Just be careful whom you extend invitations to.'
She nodded, typing again. 'I'll always ask Mother first, you know.' Then she looked up. 'And you.'
'Me?'
She typed and then looked up again. 'You know best,' she said. 'And you know me-- I would be like this all the time.'
I giggled. I am sure she would-- and thank God there were no boys there, for her pose was certainly too immodest to have kept them them at bay! But Jessy is like that-- she always feels she has nothing to hide. And so I am glad she consults me. In a way I am her protector, and that makes me happy to be so trusted. There is nothing in the world that could make me betray her trust in me.
...
It is morning-I am up. I must be going for a record-- I have not had on a stitch (not counting shoes) since Sunday afternoon... that's what? --two and a half days, and will be three and a half by tomorrow. It's just been too pleasant. And Daddy is still away-- Mother got a call from him last night that he had driven down to the house in Lewes last night to pick up things for the boat and drove right back up to his brother's house in NJ. He asked if Jessy or I wanted to come along and I think at least I was in bed by then and Mother said we were just having too nice a time here to be disturbed. I am sure he knew what that meant.
Mother is full of happy thoughts and happy comments and cute little smiles, as though she likes being queen of a house full of naked girls. Yesterday she was in a bikini all day-- her blue-and-white striped one. She honestly looks about 20 in a bikini. (She's 27 and has had two babies.) Together we have all been gardening, raking, sweeping, even doing a bit of painting like round beyond the garage. Little J.J. (age 3-1/2) is the only male-- and may I say the only one of us who doesn't work. He's built a sand village in the side yard, bordered by the tall grass along the water, the tall grass and shrubs along the preserve, the garage and the garden wall. It's probably fifty feet on a side and is pretty well planned-- there are a few houses (stacks of bricks) and roads between them all and the place is cluttered with trucks and cars. Lisa and Jessy sometimes go over there and help him. He is grateful for the help, rather like a young king (or prince in this case) newly proud of his own domains. No one challenges his authority over Sandtown and so he remains placated.
The surprise this week is that Jessy's friend Josie came over. Mother of course for the door, having put on her cover-up shirt, and gave Josie fair warning. 'Oh,' Josie said, 'well if she doesn't mind--!'
Jessy appeared on the mezzanine above her-- naked of course. 'Come on up!' she said-- and thus the situation was resolved. Next I saw of them they were both skipping-- I mean really SKIPPING-- out the back door, and I went out with Lisa later and joined them. So Josie has become the very first one of our friends to take up with us as we are. I expected her to be concerned about sunburn but she was actually not very white at all. --hmm! Wonder why? We were all very clinical with each other as far as sharing the sun lotion and had a very pleasant afternoon together. Mother rang her little bell for tea on the terraces and we all attended-- four of us this time-- none of us dressed at all. Mother had this sly little smile on the whole time. She secretly envies us, but she won't indulge it herself. I'm sure she thinks it is not her place. So she only encourages us in our indulgence instead.
Many people have asked me about that and have said it is odd that our parents do not do as we do. I am sure they have their own reasons for asking. I am sure too that many of them do not believe it is how it is for us. But our parents are very proper and responsible. I'm not saying other people's aren't-- though that may be true-- but our parents do not have a need to indulge every little whim that pops into their heads without caring about the consequences. In fact you could say that caring about the consequences is exactly what both my parents do best. Daddy teaches us that we are girls and ladies first, and one should never burden or obligate a lady. If he does not know how we would take to his being naked with us, he will not insist that we do, and of course he would be concerned about how we would come to accept all men based on his example (and I mean in terms of behaviour). And anyway he has no need or desire to be naked like we are.
Mother is something else entirely, a perfectly beautiful young woman with needs and desires not much different than those Jessy and I have. The difference is of course that she is married. She feels awkward revealing too much of herself after she has been 'known' (for lack of a better word) by our father. She considers that inappropriate. And of course, as in the Bible, a parent should not be naked in front of her own child, in this case Lisa and J.J. It's just a little awkward thinking that the children can see where they came from! Of course in the case of Jessy and me, those two conditions do not exist-- we are still 'children' in every good sense of the word and at least in one way our bodies can have no effect on the rest of our family. (I do have a suspicion-- perhaps more than a mere suspicion-- that Mother is much less prudish in private with our father, but I really think that shouldn't be something I think about or discuss too often. They are happy as they are and that's all that should matter to a child or stepchild.)
As for Josie... well I shall say that she has taken to it very easily. She and Jessy disappeared into her room, the door was not even fully closed, as we all knew who was in the house at the time, and not five minutes later the two of them emerged, giggling quietly, and trotted down the stairs to the big parlour. In another moment I had looked out my window and seen them going through the garden for the side yard. Jessy even remembered to bring the other chaise for Josie. That meant they expected me to join them... so I did. We sunned and swam and sunned and swam some more all afternoon. By tea-time Josie was as at-ease as we ever are, not even flinching when she saw Mother bringing the tea things to the terrace. 'How are you girls enjoying the day?' Mother asked us all.
'It's lovely,' Jessy said. 'Are there biscuits?'
Mother set down the tray as we all drew out chairs. 'There are, but I was going to heat them up first.'
'Heat them up?' wondered Jessy.
'Well, it's not too hot,' Mother said. 'But you girls have had nothing but sun over there.'
We all agreed the biscuits did not have to be heated up and took our places. Mother returned with the biscuits on a tray and leaned in to set them down. Josie looked up then. 'Thank you, Mrs C--,' she said sweetly.
Mother smiled right back at her. 'You are very welcome, Josie. Do you girls mind if J.J. and I join you?'
I saw Josie glance at me then. Jessy did not hesitate. 'Mother! Do you have to ask?'
Mother giggled and turned to get the other chair. Then we all six of us were seated under the umbrella having (hot) tea and biscuits, chatting about our impressions of the day.
Josie would have to go home for dinner. Very reluctantly she moped up stairs after Jessy. They were up there till Josie's mother pulled in to the front yard. Mother called up to remind them. In her cute shorts and tank-top Josie hurried out along the front gallery and down the stairs, Jessy following her naked, and in the foyer they said good-byes. I said mine from the mezzanine. Mother, in her blue-and-white bikini and cover-up shirt, stepped in at the last moment. 'I'll get that,' she said, and interposed herself between Jessy and the front door. That was a good thing-- Jessy might have got it herself, and what would Josie's mother have thought then?
Mother waved cheerfully out the front door as Josie got in to the car with her mother and they drove away. The electric gate closed. Then she shut the door. 'Well, you two had quite a day,' she said wryly at us.
Jessy only shrugged and turned to come up stairs. 'It was nice that she came over. I did invite her, you know.'
Mother smiled. 'I'm sure.'
Jessy stopped halfway up the stairs. 'Is it all right if she comes over tomorrow?'
Mother made that face again. 'Have you already invited her?'
I did not see but Jessy must have nodded then.
'Very well. Your father comes home tomorrow night or Friday. Just so you know, now.'
'Yes, Mother, of course.' And she started up the stairs again. Later in the evening I happened to pop in her room and she was sitting in her bed with her knees up and the laptop propped on her legs, typing furiously. Seeing me she looked up, and then I could guess the content of her typing. 'Do you think the rest of the club would ever.--? You know.'
I laughed. 'Do you really think they should?'
She shrugged. 'We have to have a pool party before we go,' she said. 'It has to be Friday, when he gets here with the boat.'
I nodded. 'I think we had better not. Not this soon.'
She nodded at once as though that was a perfectly reasonable response, and then she typed more, as furiously as ever. She attacks the keyboard, not hard, but so quickly you swear the picture's running in fast-motion. 'Josie agrees,' she said after a moment. 'But she's looking forward to coming over again.'
I smiled. 'She's always welcome,' I said. 'Just be careful whom you extend invitations to.'
She nodded, typing again. 'I'll always ask Mother first, you know.' Then she looked up. 'And you.'
'Me?'
She typed and then looked up again. 'You know best,' she said. 'And you know me-- I would be like this all the time.'
I giggled. I am sure she would-- and thank God there were no boys there, for her pose was certainly too immodest to have kept them them at bay! But Jessy is like that-- she always feels she has nothing to hide. And so I am glad she consults me. In a way I am her protector, and that makes me happy to be so trusted. There is nothing in the world that could make me betray her trust in me.
...
16 June 2009
YG Naked at home
Monday, 15 June 2009
I stayed up VERY late last night and got up late today... about 10.30. Normally I am up by 8.00 on any day I have off. For school I have been getting up at 6.15... but that's over with for a whole three months! In England at HOH we had only about 6 weeks. So this is one reason to be happy I am back in America.
I did not have a shower, just washed up and sauntered down stairs without putting on anything. No one seemed to be about. Daddy has gone up to NJ to get the boat ready to bring down and Mother was out in the yard with little J.J. I sat at the table and fixed a (very small) dish of Special K and then carried it out to the side deck off the kitchen. There under the umbrella I sat savouring the sunny day. I was nearly done when on the gentle southerly breeze two familiar, happy voices. I looked up over the railing. Jessy and Lisa were coming along the path through the tall grass and the shrubs from the softball field.
At once I envied them. They had got up well before I had and had been having a pleasantly childlike romp round the yard and lawn and the empty field adjacent to our house and the softball field beyond. It had been too early for anyone to have come down the road and the farmer south of us has not come up this far yet this season. They'd had the whole two dozen acres to themselves.
Lisa looked up and saw me from the yard. 'Hi,' she called.
'Hi, yourself,' I said. 'What are you two up to?'
Lisa shrugged, that cute gesture she makes so theatrically, lifting and letting go her whole body. In the next second she saw a rabbit and turned to follow it across the gravel towards the bushes. Jessy stopped in the very centre of the yard, standing there staring up at me, hands at her sides, hair loose, like Lisa completely unadorned. 'Coming down?' she asked in a soft voice.
I nodded and stood up with the empty dish. 'Let me put this away. I'll join you out back.'
She nodded and then absently turned left, towards the front of the house, and wandered off. Expecting where she would be I went out the front door, pulling it closed securely behind me. Directly before me was the driveway and the gate in the 7-ft wall and then the lane leading straight on to the road. There was no traffic out there. The houses in the little development the other side of our wall were quiet. Above, the sun was brilliant and hot, and the air inside the privacy wall was stiff and humid. We've had so much rain, off and on, that it never lifts. It's like a sauna.
I stepped down the steps to the gravel and crossed to the edge of the lawn. Jessy shuffled round the south side of the house, on the grass to spare her bare feet. Then Lisa galloped out from beyond her, going over the driveway and out across the lawn like a little pixie revelling in the freedom of being as-one with nature. I smiled at her. I knew what she felt like. I felt like that too.
Jessy approached, swaying gracefully as a lazy lioness. The breeze caught her hair and blew it up the back of her head. In that one moment it looked like a mane. I may have said this before but Jessy is a Leo, the one noted for sweet tenderness and unlimited generosity and yet also a tendency to pamper herself, to be a little self-indulgent, and hardly ever is that more obvious than when she is naked. Sometimes I imagine that she, much more than I, could be completely comfortable showing up at school in perhaps her high-heeled gold sandals and a long royal-blue silk cape, and nothing else, and be perfectly comfortable like that. Everyone would stare, of course, the boys would absolutely lose control, and yet she would remain above it all, serene and stately as a princess and entirely comfortable with being the centre of attention. The most beautiful thing about Jessy is that if she were ever able to actually do that, it wouldn't seem naughty at all. With her it is not sexual-- she's not trying to 'exert her sexuality' as someone has suggested. She's too innocent for that. I don't mean she is innocent in that she is naive-- she is somewhat naive, because there is so much she knows nothing about-- but that she is just not guilty. A naughty mind would read something sexual or egotistical in nearly everything she does, but that would be an inaccurate and inappropriate assumption. And if you assumed that you would look like a fool. Jessy would level eyes at you and make a childish little smirk and then turn aside, lifting her chin to see something much nicer that's farther above you. To her she's only being herself. And though she is complex in some ways, in other ways she is much simpler than most people assume. If she's naked, she wants to be naked. She likes it, she's comfortable, it's just something she felt like doing for her own reasons. That's all there is to it. Read more into it than that, assume it's just her secret desire to be taken down and ravaged, assume, worst of all, that she wants YOU to do that, and you'll be dead wrong. And it'll be a dead cert you'll never get the least piece of her, in any way at all.
Lisa bounded across the lawn, running straight past the gate without even a glance to see if anyone might have been coming up the lane. She squealed and suddenly pirouetted on her toes, but she was going too fast and spun round to land on her bottom in the grass. 'You twit!' I laughed out loud.
She giggled, rolling right over onto her tummy and then, with all the aplomb in the world, put down her elbow and propped her chin in her hand to look at us. 'Let's lie out right here!'
I laughed. 'Right there in the grass?'
'Yes!' She rolled over and returned to the exact same position about three feet away. 'It's like carpet.'
'No, thank you,' Jessy said, and we were strolling off the driveway and out across the lawn towards the other end of the house. 'I'll take my towel and chair, thank you.'
Lisa would not be left behind. 'Okay.'
Round the north side of the house our two chaises still rested, just outside the shade of the trees along the edge of the property. Lisa ran pst us and up the steps to the garden to bring back another chair for herself. But she never lies still for long. She's another Leo, impetuous, sweet-natured, eager to DO anything. But she has learnt from Jessy and me and has been gradually growing into manners and restraint. Maybe even more than Jessy she will be a proper princess, the 'triple threat' as Mother has called it, beautiful, intelligent and virtuous all at once. In about ten or twelve years boys will be seeking dragons to slay just to earn her good favour.
And what about me? I never say much about myself. I really don't feel comfortable saying I am generous, or sweet-natured, or innocent-- though I'm sure I am all those things. And it is true that, though I've always felt refreshingly stimulated by being naked, it wasn't till we moved to this house last summer and Jessy dared me to dive into the pool with her that I thought about sauntering round the house naked like this. Now it's nearly second nature-- I mean really, because sometimes I will descend for supper or turn to open the front door for visitors and forget I should have something on. I really am very comfortable like this, and I find it sad that no one else except my own family would ever appreciate it as I do. Even Stephen, who is a very, very good sort of guy, would have to yield to his baser nature. Maybe it is true what people tell me, that any guy would. And so maybe it is best that we three little princesses remain as we do, pure and protected inside our privacy wall, in our faery-tale castle by the sea. We just won't survive in the so-called real world.
It's 9.00 in the evening and I haven't got had on a thing all day. After a lovely afternoon of picking flowers, sweeping the garden walks, swimming in the pool, and lying out-- plenty of that-- we had supper together. Since Daddy was not home Mother did not make us get dressed and so only she and little J.J. had anything on at all. After little J.J.'s bath we are all going to watch 'Harry Potter' down stairs. If the weather is nice tomorrow I hope to do the same thing. It's true all good things must have an end-- Jessy and I must report to the ice-cream parlour before the weekend but we wouldn't have been able to do this next week anyway. For now we shall savour it as much as we can.
...
I stayed up VERY late last night and got up late today... about 10.30. Normally I am up by 8.00 on any day I have off. For school I have been getting up at 6.15... but that's over with for a whole three months! In England at HOH we had only about 6 weeks. So this is one reason to be happy I am back in America.
I did not have a shower, just washed up and sauntered down stairs without putting on anything. No one seemed to be about. Daddy has gone up to NJ to get the boat ready to bring down and Mother was out in the yard with little J.J. I sat at the table and fixed a (very small) dish of Special K and then carried it out to the side deck off the kitchen. There under the umbrella I sat savouring the sunny day. I was nearly done when on the gentle southerly breeze two familiar, happy voices. I looked up over the railing. Jessy and Lisa were coming along the path through the tall grass and the shrubs from the softball field.
At once I envied them. They had got up well before I had and had been having a pleasantly childlike romp round the yard and lawn and the empty field adjacent to our house and the softball field beyond. It had been too early for anyone to have come down the road and the farmer south of us has not come up this far yet this season. They'd had the whole two dozen acres to themselves.
Lisa looked up and saw me from the yard. 'Hi,' she called.
'Hi, yourself,' I said. 'What are you two up to?'
Lisa shrugged, that cute gesture she makes so theatrically, lifting and letting go her whole body. In the next second she saw a rabbit and turned to follow it across the gravel towards the bushes. Jessy stopped in the very centre of the yard, standing there staring up at me, hands at her sides, hair loose, like Lisa completely unadorned. 'Coming down?' she asked in a soft voice.
I nodded and stood up with the empty dish. 'Let me put this away. I'll join you out back.'
She nodded and then absently turned left, towards the front of the house, and wandered off. Expecting where she would be I went out the front door, pulling it closed securely behind me. Directly before me was the driveway and the gate in the 7-ft wall and then the lane leading straight on to the road. There was no traffic out there. The houses in the little development the other side of our wall were quiet. Above, the sun was brilliant and hot, and the air inside the privacy wall was stiff and humid. We've had so much rain, off and on, that it never lifts. It's like a sauna.
I stepped down the steps to the gravel and crossed to the edge of the lawn. Jessy shuffled round the south side of the house, on the grass to spare her bare feet. Then Lisa galloped out from beyond her, going over the driveway and out across the lawn like a little pixie revelling in the freedom of being as-one with nature. I smiled at her. I knew what she felt like. I felt like that too.
Jessy approached, swaying gracefully as a lazy lioness. The breeze caught her hair and blew it up the back of her head. In that one moment it looked like a mane. I may have said this before but Jessy is a Leo, the one noted for sweet tenderness and unlimited generosity and yet also a tendency to pamper herself, to be a little self-indulgent, and hardly ever is that more obvious than when she is naked. Sometimes I imagine that she, much more than I, could be completely comfortable showing up at school in perhaps her high-heeled gold sandals and a long royal-blue silk cape, and nothing else, and be perfectly comfortable like that. Everyone would stare, of course, the boys would absolutely lose control, and yet she would remain above it all, serene and stately as a princess and entirely comfortable with being the centre of attention. The most beautiful thing about Jessy is that if she were ever able to actually do that, it wouldn't seem naughty at all. With her it is not sexual-- she's not trying to 'exert her sexuality' as someone has suggested. She's too innocent for that. I don't mean she is innocent in that she is naive-- she is somewhat naive, because there is so much she knows nothing about-- but that she is just not guilty. A naughty mind would read something sexual or egotistical in nearly everything she does, but that would be an inaccurate and inappropriate assumption. And if you assumed that you would look like a fool. Jessy would level eyes at you and make a childish little smirk and then turn aside, lifting her chin to see something much nicer that's farther above you. To her she's only being herself. And though she is complex in some ways, in other ways she is much simpler than most people assume. If she's naked, she wants to be naked. She likes it, she's comfortable, it's just something she felt like doing for her own reasons. That's all there is to it. Read more into it than that, assume it's just her secret desire to be taken down and ravaged, assume, worst of all, that she wants YOU to do that, and you'll be dead wrong. And it'll be a dead cert you'll never get the least piece of her, in any way at all.
Lisa bounded across the lawn, running straight past the gate without even a glance to see if anyone might have been coming up the lane. She squealed and suddenly pirouetted on her toes, but she was going too fast and spun round to land on her bottom in the grass. 'You twit!' I laughed out loud.
She giggled, rolling right over onto her tummy and then, with all the aplomb in the world, put down her elbow and propped her chin in her hand to look at us. 'Let's lie out right here!'
I laughed. 'Right there in the grass?'
'Yes!' She rolled over and returned to the exact same position about three feet away. 'It's like carpet.'
'No, thank you,' Jessy said, and we were strolling off the driveway and out across the lawn towards the other end of the house. 'I'll take my towel and chair, thank you.'
Lisa would not be left behind. 'Okay.'
Round the north side of the house our two chaises still rested, just outside the shade of the trees along the edge of the property. Lisa ran pst us and up the steps to the garden to bring back another chair for herself. But she never lies still for long. She's another Leo, impetuous, sweet-natured, eager to DO anything. But she has learnt from Jessy and me and has been gradually growing into manners and restraint. Maybe even more than Jessy she will be a proper princess, the 'triple threat' as Mother has called it, beautiful, intelligent and virtuous all at once. In about ten or twelve years boys will be seeking dragons to slay just to earn her good favour.
And what about me? I never say much about myself. I really don't feel comfortable saying I am generous, or sweet-natured, or innocent-- though I'm sure I am all those things. And it is true that, though I've always felt refreshingly stimulated by being naked, it wasn't till we moved to this house last summer and Jessy dared me to dive into the pool with her that I thought about sauntering round the house naked like this. Now it's nearly second nature-- I mean really, because sometimes I will descend for supper or turn to open the front door for visitors and forget I should have something on. I really am very comfortable like this, and I find it sad that no one else except my own family would ever appreciate it as I do. Even Stephen, who is a very, very good sort of guy, would have to yield to his baser nature. Maybe it is true what people tell me, that any guy would. And so maybe it is best that we three little princesses remain as we do, pure and protected inside our privacy wall, in our faery-tale castle by the sea. We just won't survive in the so-called real world.
It's 9.00 in the evening and I haven't got had on a thing all day. After a lovely afternoon of picking flowers, sweeping the garden walks, swimming in the pool, and lying out-- plenty of that-- we had supper together. Since Daddy was not home Mother did not make us get dressed and so only she and little J.J. had anything on at all. After little J.J.'s bath we are all going to watch 'Harry Potter' down stairs. If the weather is nice tomorrow I hope to do the same thing. It's true all good things must have an end-- Jessy and I must report to the ice-cream parlour before the weekend but we wouldn't have been able to do this next week anyway. For now we shall savour it as much as we can.
...
31 May 2009
Such is the gentle life.
Whitsunday, 31 May 2009
As we are back in the US again we must become used to American ways all over again, and one of them is the way the church here celebrates Whitsunday as 'Pentecost' and emphasises the colour red. Jessy and I would be unswayed however and with Lisa we all wore white. We each have a new soft cotton dress, and I wore my white sandals. Of course at church half the people teased us-- 'You forgot to wear red!' --none of the poor dears knowing that we really were commemorating the day, only in a different way. There were two baptisms as this is a traditional day for it, but, unusually, one was an adult-- a mother and a the newborn (actually about 2 months old). Then there was the usual reception with tea and doughnuts and all, which Daddy and Mother wanted to stay for since it meant we did not have to go out for pancakes.
At home I rang Dottie at the ice-cream parlour up in New Jersey, because I promised to, just to find out how she was doing. So by the time I was ready to go outside the cloudiness and drizzle had cleared up. I put away the dress and sandals and in my underthings went into Jessy's room, where she was complaining about not being able to go all bare outside. After some comforting I got her to come out with Lisa and me anyway. I went out in my panties too, to not let Jessy feel left out, but she was still a little miffed that my panties were white. Hers could not be-- she of course had worn a slip with her white dress to church.
And little Lisa went bare, such as she is prone to do. She doesn't have these problems!
We did not merely lie out but did a bit of straightening-up round the yard, as the recent rains have cluttered the side yard with sticks from the trees and so on. We rearranged some potted plants round the bottom of the steps from the upper garden and finally dragged our chaises down to the lawn to settle in. The sun was very bright, even intense, which was what we wanted. Jessy and I imposed on Lisa to put the lotion on our backs. She never minds this-- she considers it an honour. Of course I put it all over her too. She giggles when you rub lotion onto her bottom. I always make sure to tickle her because that's sort of called-for when she is only 5 and prone to giggling.
When we moved the chaises down we sort of set them up a little closer to the water. The walled garden is very formal and solid, with plenty of rip and even a spare little beach between the easternmost wall and the water of the Bay. But the yards to either side just sort of roll down in a series of shallow terraces till a fringe of grass is separating the area we maintain from a short dune and then the sand and the water. The fringe of grass is never trimmed and so provides a kind of screen between the fishermen's eyes and where we lie. I have never felt uncomfortable lying there. I am quite sure none of them would ever even think to look for us with binoculars and as I said I don't think they would see us. So last summer we gradually came to make this our usual sunning zone. Because of the wall we are out of sight from the first storey if anyone should happen to come over-- although we'd still have the problem of sneaking back into the house!
I nodded off-- too many late nights online I am sure! --and had a very bizarre dream about these horrible steel frames which rolled on a track and you put scrap metal into them to burn so that they would move together, which was the end. And some terrorist group was using them as an execution device. One prisoner I had become friendly with and I remember reaching out and holding his hand in farewell, saying, 'I love you, brother!' And he said, 'I am safe now.- --meaning he was in God's hands. He knew I would be the last friendly human being he would see on this earth. And I woke up shaking.
Jessy was out of her chaise and wandering down along the fringe of grass. There were boats out-- I wondered how modest she would be, but none of the boats seemed close enough to worry about. As I watched she said down cross-legged in the grass and toyed with a small stick. She was bored. She would rather have been naked. Lisa was long gone by this time-- she never lies long but wanders round the yard too, sometimes doing some questionably modest things herself-- once last summer we found her on the other side of the house exploring the construction site that would become the ballfield... and naked, but for her sneakers which she put on 'to be safe'. I got up and strolled down to where Jessy sat. 'What's wrong?'
She shrugged. I watched her toy with the stick for a bit and then she looked up at me. 'We're not going to be able to do this at the Shore,' she said.
Both of us are intending to work at the ice-cream parlour this summer. We'll be staying in our old house, the little house Daddy built on the beach when he and Mommy were first married. It's cosy, but of course the beach there is very popular with even unsavoury characters and there's no opportunity do do as we do here. I folded my legs under me and sat down. 'I know,' I said. 'But we'll be back often. Dottie's giving us a very lenient schedule.'
'I know....' She leaned back on her hands and stretched out her legs. 'I didn't think I would love here, and now I do.'
I smiled at her. 'Because of this?'
She shrugged. In that pose it looked very cute. 'Yes.... And the house. And the quiet. And because of Daddy.'
'Daddy?'
'He loves it here,' she said. 'He's busy all the time. He scarcely even works now. And now with the ballfield....'
I knew what she meant. Daddy drives over on the tractor and mows the whole outfield and surrounding yard as well as our own. You would think someone like him would be content to hire someone-- but the only paid people who do our yard are for cleaning the pool and trimming the trees with that tall thing on the arm. He actually enjoys driving round in circles on that tractor, often with little JJ on the 'copilot seat' (which is a seat with a seatbelt he bolted to the fender beside his seat in his lap) or in the trailer with Lisa. We see very few visitors here, being so far away from all our usual acquaintance. And we did not go away for New Year's and scarcely have gone anywhere since. I feel as Jessy does-- that when we are working up in New Jersey this summer I will miss this place terribly. It's become a home in more than a physical sense.
Little Lisa came running-- I mean really running, full tilt-- round the front corner of the house and down the whole yard to where we sat. 'You guys!' she said. And she skidded to a halt and slid in on her side beside us in the grass. 'What are you doing?'
'Talking,' Jessy told her.
'Ha-ha-ha. Is it girl talk?'
I turned at her. 'What if it is? You're a girl.'
'Ha. Yes I am.' And she shrugged, as though unsure of that. But really there isn't much we refuse to talk about in front of her. What she doesn't get doesn't matter. 'So are you going steady with Stephen?'
I smiled at her. So did Jessy. 'That's not exactly what we were talking about, you know. But, for your information, no, I'm not.'
'Ohhh. Did he ask you?'
'No.'
She nodded, understanding that. 'Does he have another girlfriend?'
I laughed. 'No.'
'Then why hasn't he asked you?'
Lisa is adorable when she gets like this. The first reason is because she has about half of Mother's Anglican Australian accent-- she uses words like 'hasn't' well and never seems to say anything that's not well said, meaning articulately pronounced. The other thing is that she's uncommonly persistent. She doesn't actually nag and she never really becomes a nuisance-- if you just tell her you'd rather stop talking about this she will respect that and stop. But she will ask everything that comes into her mind and she asks it because she really does want to know the answer. She is clearly the precocious product of a brilliant and charming mother, a mature and worldly father, and two older sisters who converse with her like an equal. She is the epitome of the 'triple threat' and will be absolutely terrifying to puerile boys (and the men they grow up to be) some day.
(The 'triple threat' is what Mother calls the concept of being good-looking, intelligent, and virtuous, to the point where most men are completely stymied. Invariably they can accept two out of three. It's that third one that drives them nuts. But, as Mother says, it's what all decent and intelligent men really want. It only falls to the men to figure that out, appreciate it for what it is, and then lift themselves out of the gutter to deserve you. Invariably they can do two out of three. It's that third one that they give up on.)
We got up and with Lisa holding each of our hands strolled back along the lawn towards the chaises. When we were halfway there Daddy came round the corner with the tractor and JJ on the 'copilot seat'. Seeing us he hit the horn and raced the tractor towards us. Lisa giggled, let go of our hands, and ran off towards the trees squealing as though she were being chased. Daddy stopped the tractor and then she approached him, warily, standing a few yards away and hooking her fingers in front of herself and twirlling on her heels like she does when she's being bashful. Before we got there Daddy had put JJ down and the two of them ran hand-in-hand up the garden steps to the house.
'What is it?' I called.
'Nothing,' he said. 'Tea. That's all.'
We both nodded. Jessy paced off towards the steps, not saying anything. I stopped beside Daddy in the idling tractor.
'What's with her?' he asked me.
'She's just being pensive,' I said. 'She says she will miss being here this summer.'
'Well, I don't expect you two to be gone all the time.'
'No,' I said, 'I don't expect us to either.'
'I would miss you,' he said.
I smiled at that. The house at the beach is his house-- he can come and go as he likes. What he was saying is that he would prefer to be here, or at Lewes. He has become gentry-- I hid a laugh at the notion of my father the ex-performer taking the peace of his own 'vine and fig tree'. This is his house and the husbandry of it is what he loves best. So-- is that what we have come to? We are gentry? My father has land, tenants in houses, even a tenant farmer and gardener, so that must mean I am a gentleman's daughter. Well-- there might be worse things to be.
...
As we are back in the US again we must become used to American ways all over again, and one of them is the way the church here celebrates Whitsunday as 'Pentecost' and emphasises the colour red. Jessy and I would be unswayed however and with Lisa we all wore white. We each have a new soft cotton dress, and I wore my white sandals. Of course at church half the people teased us-- 'You forgot to wear red!' --none of the poor dears knowing that we really were commemorating the day, only in a different way. There were two baptisms as this is a traditional day for it, but, unusually, one was an adult-- a mother and a the newborn (actually about 2 months old). Then there was the usual reception with tea and doughnuts and all, which Daddy and Mother wanted to stay for since it meant we did not have to go out for pancakes.
At home I rang Dottie at the ice-cream parlour up in New Jersey, because I promised to, just to find out how she was doing. So by the time I was ready to go outside the cloudiness and drizzle had cleared up. I put away the dress and sandals and in my underthings went into Jessy's room, where she was complaining about not being able to go all bare outside. After some comforting I got her to come out with Lisa and me anyway. I went out in my panties too, to not let Jessy feel left out, but she was still a little miffed that my panties were white. Hers could not be-- she of course had worn a slip with her white dress to church.
And little Lisa went bare, such as she is prone to do. She doesn't have these problems!
We did not merely lie out but did a bit of straightening-up round the yard, as the recent rains have cluttered the side yard with sticks from the trees and so on. We rearranged some potted plants round the bottom of the steps from the upper garden and finally dragged our chaises down to the lawn to settle in. The sun was very bright, even intense, which was what we wanted. Jessy and I imposed on Lisa to put the lotion on our backs. She never minds this-- she considers it an honour. Of course I put it all over her too. She giggles when you rub lotion onto her bottom. I always make sure to tickle her because that's sort of called-for when she is only 5 and prone to giggling.
When we moved the chaises down we sort of set them up a little closer to the water. The walled garden is very formal and solid, with plenty of rip and even a spare little beach between the easternmost wall and the water of the Bay. But the yards to either side just sort of roll down in a series of shallow terraces till a fringe of grass is separating the area we maintain from a short dune and then the sand and the water. The fringe of grass is never trimmed and so provides a kind of screen between the fishermen's eyes and where we lie. I have never felt uncomfortable lying there. I am quite sure none of them would ever even think to look for us with binoculars and as I said I don't think they would see us. So last summer we gradually came to make this our usual sunning zone. Because of the wall we are out of sight from the first storey if anyone should happen to come over-- although we'd still have the problem of sneaking back into the house!
I nodded off-- too many late nights online I am sure! --and had a very bizarre dream about these horrible steel frames which rolled on a track and you put scrap metal into them to burn so that they would move together, which was the end. And some terrorist group was using them as an execution device. One prisoner I had become friendly with and I remember reaching out and holding his hand in farewell, saying, 'I love you, brother!' And he said, 'I am safe now.- --meaning he was in God's hands. He knew I would be the last friendly human being he would see on this earth. And I woke up shaking.
Jessy was out of her chaise and wandering down along the fringe of grass. There were boats out-- I wondered how modest she would be, but none of the boats seemed close enough to worry about. As I watched she said down cross-legged in the grass and toyed with a small stick. She was bored. She would rather have been naked. Lisa was long gone by this time-- she never lies long but wanders round the yard too, sometimes doing some questionably modest things herself-- once last summer we found her on the other side of the house exploring the construction site that would become the ballfield... and naked, but for her sneakers which she put on 'to be safe'. I got up and strolled down to where Jessy sat. 'What's wrong?'
She shrugged. I watched her toy with the stick for a bit and then she looked up at me. 'We're not going to be able to do this at the Shore,' she said.
Both of us are intending to work at the ice-cream parlour this summer. We'll be staying in our old house, the little house Daddy built on the beach when he and Mommy were first married. It's cosy, but of course the beach there is very popular with even unsavoury characters and there's no opportunity do do as we do here. I folded my legs under me and sat down. 'I know,' I said. 'But we'll be back often. Dottie's giving us a very lenient schedule.'
'I know....' She leaned back on her hands and stretched out her legs. 'I didn't think I would love here, and now I do.'
I smiled at her. 'Because of this?'
She shrugged. In that pose it looked very cute. 'Yes.... And the house. And the quiet. And because of Daddy.'
'Daddy?'
'He loves it here,' she said. 'He's busy all the time. He scarcely even works now. And now with the ballfield....'
I knew what she meant. Daddy drives over on the tractor and mows the whole outfield and surrounding yard as well as our own. You would think someone like him would be content to hire someone-- but the only paid people who do our yard are for cleaning the pool and trimming the trees with that tall thing on the arm. He actually enjoys driving round in circles on that tractor, often with little JJ on the 'copilot seat' (which is a seat with a seatbelt he bolted to the fender beside his seat in his lap) or in the trailer with Lisa. We see very few visitors here, being so far away from all our usual acquaintance. And we did not go away for New Year's and scarcely have gone anywhere since. I feel as Jessy does-- that when we are working up in New Jersey this summer I will miss this place terribly. It's become a home in more than a physical sense.
Little Lisa came running-- I mean really running, full tilt-- round the front corner of the house and down the whole yard to where we sat. 'You guys!' she said. And she skidded to a halt and slid in on her side beside us in the grass. 'What are you doing?'
'Talking,' Jessy told her.
'Ha-ha-ha. Is it girl talk?'
I turned at her. 'What if it is? You're a girl.'
'Ha. Yes I am.' And she shrugged, as though unsure of that. But really there isn't much we refuse to talk about in front of her. What she doesn't get doesn't matter. 'So are you going steady with Stephen?'
I smiled at her. So did Jessy. 'That's not exactly what we were talking about, you know. But, for your information, no, I'm not.'
'Ohhh. Did he ask you?'
'No.'
She nodded, understanding that. 'Does he have another girlfriend?'
I laughed. 'No.'
'Then why hasn't he asked you?'
Lisa is adorable when she gets like this. The first reason is because she has about half of Mother's Anglican Australian accent-- she uses words like 'hasn't' well and never seems to say anything that's not well said, meaning articulately pronounced. The other thing is that she's uncommonly persistent. She doesn't actually nag and she never really becomes a nuisance-- if you just tell her you'd rather stop talking about this she will respect that and stop. But she will ask everything that comes into her mind and she asks it because she really does want to know the answer. She is clearly the precocious product of a brilliant and charming mother, a mature and worldly father, and two older sisters who converse with her like an equal. She is the epitome of the 'triple threat' and will be absolutely terrifying to puerile boys (and the men they grow up to be) some day.
(The 'triple threat' is what Mother calls the concept of being good-looking, intelligent, and virtuous, to the point where most men are completely stymied. Invariably they can accept two out of three. It's that third one that drives them nuts. But, as Mother says, it's what all decent and intelligent men really want. It only falls to the men to figure that out, appreciate it for what it is, and then lift themselves out of the gutter to deserve you. Invariably they can do two out of three. It's that third one that they give up on.)
We got up and with Lisa holding each of our hands strolled back along the lawn towards the chaises. When we were halfway there Daddy came round the corner with the tractor and JJ on the 'copilot seat'. Seeing us he hit the horn and raced the tractor towards us. Lisa giggled, let go of our hands, and ran off towards the trees squealing as though she were being chased. Daddy stopped the tractor and then she approached him, warily, standing a few yards away and hooking her fingers in front of herself and twirlling on her heels like she does when she's being bashful. Before we got there Daddy had put JJ down and the two of them ran hand-in-hand up the garden steps to the house.
'What is it?' I called.
'Nothing,' he said. 'Tea. That's all.'
We both nodded. Jessy paced off towards the steps, not saying anything. I stopped beside Daddy in the idling tractor.
'What's with her?' he asked me.
'She's just being pensive,' I said. 'She says she will miss being here this summer.'
'Well, I don't expect you two to be gone all the time.'
'No,' I said, 'I don't expect us to either.'
'I would miss you,' he said.
I smiled at that. The house at the beach is his house-- he can come and go as he likes. What he was saying is that he would prefer to be here, or at Lewes. He has become gentry-- I hid a laugh at the notion of my father the ex-performer taking the peace of his own 'vine and fig tree'. This is his house and the husbandry of it is what he loves best. So-- is that what we have come to? We are gentry? My father has land, tenants in houses, even a tenant farmer and gardener, so that must mean I am a gentleman's daughter. Well-- there might be worse things to be.
...
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